U.S. Senator refused entry to facility holding migrants’ kids

A United States senator tried to enter a federal facility in Texas where immigrant children are being held, but police were summoned and he was told to leave.

Sen. Jeff Merkley’s attempt late Sunday to enter the facility, and his request to speak to a manager, comes amid a national debate over the practice of separating families caught crossing the border illegally. A spokeswoman for the federal agency that is caring for the children accused the senator of grandstanding.

The children are being held in Brownsville, a city along the Mexican border, said Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon who livestreamed his arrival there on Facebook. He said no member of Congress has visited the facility, and that because U.S. citizens were financing it, he and the press should be able to see what conditions are like inside. The facility, run by a contractor, is in a former Wal-mart with blacked-out windows.

“Every American citizen has a stake in how these children are being treated and how this policy is being enacted,” Merkley said. He said a new policy under President Donald Trump is “ripping away” children from immigrant families who have entered the country illegally or are seeking asylum here.

A supervisor, who finally emerged from the building, told Merkley he was not allowed to make any statements. He gave the senator a phone number of the public affairs office in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington.