Morgan Chalfant and Jonathan Easley
The HillTue, 23 Mar 2021 18:34 UTC
© Jaime Rodriguez Sr/U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs
The Biden administration on Tuesday released
video footage and
photos of two Texas facilities housing migrant children amid pressure for more transparency at the federal centers.
A Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) official told The Hill that the agency continues to "discourage external visitors" - including the press - at the facilities housing migrant children.
However, CBP released two videos and 44 images of the facilities in Donna, Texas and El Paso, Texas in an effort to "balance the need for public transparency and accountability," the official said.
The video shows unaccompanied children in masks at the tent facility receiving medical checks and food and sleeping on floors in foil blankets. In one shot, small children are seen in a playpen as a worker watches them. Brief footage of the El Paso facility shows children exercising outdoors.
© Customs and Border PatrolSmall children are seen in a playpen as a worker watches them.
The development comes after the office of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) on Monday
unveiled photos taken at the crowded Donna tent facility that showed children sleeping on floors.
The new video footage and photos represent an effort by the Biden administration to address
concerns from journalists and advocates about transparency around the facilities amid the surge of unaccompanied migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico.
The Biden administration thus far has not allowed independent press coverage of the border facilities, citing protocols due to the coronavirus pandemic. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled with a congressional delegation to the facility in El Paso on Friday, a trip that was closed to the press.
"We are working on independent press coverage. We believe that that should happen and that should be the case," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing Monday afternoon, reiterating that the administration is committed to transparency.
The White House says that President Biden has been briefed regularly on the situation and seen photos from the facilities. Biden told reporters over the weekend that he would visit the border "at some point."
Comment: As pretty as these facility images are, they don't tell the whole story. The numbers arriving at the border far exceed their capacity. More on the
overflow:
Gila Bend, Arizona, is a town of less than 2,000 people, located halfway between the state capital of Phoenix and Sonoyta, a village on the Mexican side of the border. Mayor Chris Riggs told Fox News on Monday that for the past two weeks, Border Patrol agents have been dropping off busloads of illegal immigrants in Gila Bend, with no further instruction from the government on what to do with them.
"Border Patrol let us know that they were going to be dropping migrants that had been detained for 72 hours in our town, which we really didn't understand because we have nothing here," Riggs told FOX Business. He said that he's been left "completely in the dark" by the Biden administration on what to do with the new arrivals, and has not received any funding to shelter, house or feed the migrants.
Announcing that he would declare a state of emergency in the hope of getting some federal aid, Riggs told Fox that to test two busloads of migrants for Covid-19 every week for a year would cost his town $600,000. In addition to the influx by bus, he said that 20 or so migrants are arriving every day on foot, and violent crime has increased in Gila Bend as a result.
Riggs has appeared on TV multiple times in recent weeks to highlight the same problem. "Quite frankly, it's going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars a year to be able just to provide them with a bottle of water and a sandwich when they get dropped off," he told Fox last week. He then spoke to RT, and said dropping migrants off without health and background checks was akin to "opening Pandora's box."
Riggs is just the mayor of one small town, but his story illustrates a wider problem along the US' 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Meanwhile, in the progressive liberal bubble of Washington, Kamala seems to be
not grasping the magnitude of the problem. Or perhaps, she just doesn't care?
Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed a reporter with a cackle and said "not today" after she was asked whether she had plans to visit America's southern border, which is now overwhelmed by migrants arriving in record numbers.
The exchange took place on Monday, as Harris spoke to reporters after arriving at Jacksonville International Airport in Florida on Air Force One. When asked about a potential trip to the border, she answered, "Um, not today" before letting out a laugh. "But I have before, and I'm sure I will again."
The response came off as tone deaf at a time when the border faces a rapid influx of illegal immigration and deteriorating conditions at migrant detention facilities, only worsening since President Joe Biden took office in January and enacted policies incentivizing migrants to make the trek north. Harris' comment also happened to come on the same day that both Axios and Project Veritas released photos showing the squalid conditions at holding centers for unaccompanied migrant children detained at the border.
...
Critics on social media blasted Harris for seemingly laughing off the issue.
"Kamala Harris, putting children in cages is NO laughing matter..." charged conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza.
"Apparently, the border crisis is now a laughing matter for the Biden administration," Senator Cruz's adviser Steve Guest quipped.
A supporter of ex-president Donald Trump argued that the media does not hold Harris to the same standard as the former Republican president.
"No urgency, no crisis," another commenter said. "If this was Trump, OMGEE, the breaking news goes all the way to the Milky Way."
Comment: As pretty as these facility images are, they don't tell the whole story. The numbers arriving at the border far exceed their capacity. More on the overflow: Meanwhile, in the progressive liberal bubble of Washington, Kamala seems to be not grasping the magnitude of the problem. Or perhaps, she just doesn't care?