House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) posted video footage of numerous unaccompanied children being housed in a Donna, Texas, Border Patrol facility and said it’s tantamount to “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 wrote on Twitter on April 10.
The video showed what appeared to be possibly hundreds of children covered in aluminum-style blankets, packed next to each other in transparent pens. The sound of people talking loudly in the background can be heard.
A day before releasing the video, Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House, posted a video of himself talking near a section of the U.S.-Mexico 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,” he said in a tweet as dozens of people who appear to be trying to cross the border illegally walk past him.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
On Monday, the White House reached a deal with Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras to potentially stem the flow of illegal immigration into the United States, a Biden administration official said.
Special Assistant to the President for Immigration for the Domestic Policy Council Tyler Moran said in a TV interview that the administration “secured agreements” that would place “more troops on their” respective borders.
“Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala have all agreed to do this,” Moran said. “That not only is going to prevent the traffickers and the smugglers and cartels that take advantage of the kids on their way here, but also to protect those children.”
The announcement comes as numerous illegal immigrants have attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months. In March, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered more than 171,000 illegal immigrants, including a significant number of unaccompanied children, according to data provided by the agency.
Authorities encountered 18,890 unaccompanied children in March, well above previous highs of 11,475 in May 2019 and 10,620 in June 2014 reported by the Border Patrol, which began publishing numbers in 2009.
More than 4,000 parents and children—mostly unaccompanied minors—have been crammed into a CBP tent complex designed for 250 in Donna, Texas. More than 600 children were packed into a room built for 32 last week, according to Reuters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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