Dems call handling of migrants ‘callous’
WASHINGTON — Democrats pivoted Wednesday from a divisive fight over a border bill to what they label the government’s “willful neglect” and “callous” treatment of thousands of detained migrants, even as President Donald Trump defended Border Patrol agents and said many people being held “are living far better now than where they came from.”
Democratic outrage was fueled by lawmakers who reported overcrowded, unsanitary conditions at South Texas detention facilities they visited this week, observations that a report by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general seemed to confirm.
In addition, a Facebook group for Border Patrol agents surfaced that included flippant posts about migrants perishing in U.S. custody and references to two female House Democrats as “hoes.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for the firing of Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the federal Customs and Border Protection Agency.
He said the reports of migrants’ plight and the Facebook group “paint a picture of a toxic culture” and said Morgan and other agency leaders “are too callous about the way in which children and their families are treated.”
Morgan took the agency’s top post barely a week ago, after then-acting Commissioner John Sanders resigned amid an outcry over the revelation that children were being held in miserable conditions at one of the agency‘s Texas facilities.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee planned a July 12 hearing on the treatment of detained families and the conditions under which they are held.
The Democratic-led panel has invited Morgan and Kevin McAleenan, acting Homeland Security Department secretary, to testify.
In addition, the House Judiciary Committee was planning its own hearing this month to examine conditions for holding migrants.
“What we’re seeing is willful neglect of these people,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Castro and other members of that caucus toured two Texas detention facilities this week. He later released cellphone video he secretly recorded showing women sitting on sleeping bags on what appear to be concrete floors.
In a series of tweets, Trump defended Border Patrol agents, saying they “are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses,” and made no concessions about the conditions at detention centers.
The administration has long said federal agencies trying to cope with the growing flow of migrants across the southern border were overwhelmed and based its request for the $4.6 billion border package that Congress approved last week on the need to improve those facilities.
“Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions,” he wrote.
Though many migrants are fleeing nations beset by war, crime and poverty, there have been few defenders of the lack of adequate space, water and food that many of them have faced after being detained by U.S. authorities.