USA TODAY International Edition
Pence to visit Texas border
Tour comes amid outcry over migrant centers
WASHINGTON – Vice President Mike Pence will travel to the southern border Friday, the same day House Democrats will hold a hearing on dangerous conditions at overcrowded migrant detention centers.
Pence tweeted Monday that he will go to McAllen, Texas, home to one of the federal detention centers contributing to what federal investigators called a “ticking time bomb.”
Pence said he will be accompanied by his wife and a bipartisan delegation of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
An inspector general’s report released last week described the conditions at the detention facilities in the Rio Grande Valley. Border Patrol managers told investigators men had clogged toilets with Mylar blankets or socks to get out of cells during maintenance. Pictures in the report showed migrants crowded behind chain-link fences in a McAllen facility and huddling under blankets on the floor. Detainees banged on windows, shouted and pointed to their beards to demonstrate the length of their stays as investigators from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General Office visited five facilities during the week of June 10.
As he announced his McAllen trip, Pence welcomed passage of an emergency aid bill for the border but said on Twitter that “much more must be done to SECURE our border & end this crisis!”
In a speech Monday morning to Christians United for Israel, Pence blamed “Democrat obstruction” for problems at the border.
Pence accused Democrats of initially denying there was a crisis and said they held up funding to ease the situation. He accused them of refusing “to close the loopholes used by human traffickers to exploit those vulnerable families.”
“We will provide compassionate relief to vulnerable families swept up in the crisis,” Pence said. “And we will fix this broken immigration system once and for all.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, accused the administration of “open contempt for the rule of law and for basic human decency” in its treatment of migrants.
The committee asked Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to testify before the panel Friday.
The conditions arose as apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley more than doubled in the past year: 223,263 from October through May, compared with 99,835 for the same period a year earlier, according to the Border Patrol.
The largest increase occurred among families, skyrocketing to 135,812 apprehensions during the first eight months of the year from 36,773 a year earlier.
Border protection facilities are designed for short stays, before adults are passed along to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and children move to Health and Human Services facilities.
Because ICE and HHS facilities are also overcrowded, the border protection agency is unable to transfer its detainees.