House Minority Whip Scalise: Conditions faced by migrant children is ‘child abuse’

This March 20, 2021, photo provided by the Office of Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, shows detainees in a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas. President Joe Biden’s administration faces mounting criticism for refusing to allow outside observers into facilities where it is detaining thousands of immigrant children.

(The Center Square) – House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., posted video footage of unaccompanied migrant minors being held in a federal facility in Donna, Texas, describing it as “child abuse.”

“I visited the Donna processing facility yesterday. … This is the devastating result of their disastrous left-wing immigration agenda. RT so everyone can see what they’re trying to hide. This is child abuse,” Scalise tweeted.

{{tncms-inline account=”Steve Scalise” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨 I visited the Donna processing facility yesterday.These are the videos Joe Biden & Kamala Harris don't want you to see.This is the devastating result of their disastrous left-wing immigration agenda.RT so everyone can see what they’re trying to hide. This is child abuse. <a href="https://t.co/7y7sQp50Pn">pic.twitter.com/7y7sQp50Pn</a></p>— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1380912281421291529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1380912281421291529″ type=”twitter”}}

The video shows what appears to be possibly hundreds of children covered in aluminum shell blankets, laying on the floor in an area divided by plastic barriers.

“This is out of control. It’s the middle of the night. We’ve seen dozens of children flow freely across the border in just the past few minutes,” he said in a video of himself talking about the crisis as dozens of individuals walked behind him appearing to cross the Texas-Mexico border illegally without being apprehended.

{{tncms-inline account=”Steve Scalise” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨🚨 LIVE from the border:This is out of control. It’s the middle of the night. We’ve seen dozens of children flow freely across the border in just the past few minutes.This is the reality of Joe Biden’s disastrous amnesty agenda. <a href="https://t.co/kPCPAclpvd">pic.twitter.com/kPCPAclpvd</a></p>— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1380394414191824898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2021</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1380394414191824898″ type=”twitter”}}

U.S. Border Patrol says it encountered 18,890 unaccompanied children in March, far more than the 11,475 it encountered in May 2019 and 10,620 in June 2014, previous record highs.

More than 4,000 parents and mostly unaccompanied minors have been crammed into a border patrol tent complex initially created to house 250 people in Donna, Texas. More than 600 children were packed into a room built for 32 last week, Reuters reported.

On Monday, the White House announced that it had reached a deal with Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras for these countries to place “more troops on their” respective borders.

Tyler Moran, special assistant to the president for immigration for the Domestic Policy Council, said the agreement will “prevent the traffickers and the smugglers and cartels that take advantage of the kids on their way here, but also protect those children.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, whom President Joe Biden tasked with addressing the border crisis, has yet to visit the border or see first-hand the conditions in which illegal immigrants are being detained in federal facilities.