MISSION — A delegation of 18 U.S senators doubled down on criticisms of the Biden administration Friday during a visit to the Rio Grande Valley that included tours of the border and a migrant processing facility in Donna.
Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz led the delegation, which concluded with a news conference at Anzalduas Park during which they continually criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of the immigration situation along the border.
The senators only took three questions from the press during the news conference, and said Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had worsened a situation they said was “fixed” by former President Donald J. Trump through programs such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings.
“President Trump and his administration fixed the problem, that’s the point we’re trying to make,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin said.
Without the return of such policies, the senators indicated they would not lend their support to a comprehensive immigration bill.
“If they want to accomplish anything on immigration, and I want to help them, it would be ‘secure the border,'” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa said. “You gotta stop the bleeding before you can take care of the problem.”
Earlier, the senators had toured the migrant processing facility in Donna, which Cruz said was holding nearly 4,000 people despite a capacity of 250. He also accused the Biden administration of lacking transparency for not allowing media inside the facility with the delegation.
Echoing that critique was U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo, who also accused Biden of lying when the president said during a news conference on Thursday that the majority of families who arrive on the border are being sent back.
Currently, not all people who enter the country requesting asylum are allowed to stay. Under a federal public health policy of the federal code, known as Title 42, Border Patrol is expelling adults and certain families along the border.
As of March 25, Border Patrol took about 6,000 family members into their custody, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Of those, about half were released into local communities and 49% of them were expelled to Mexico.
A large portion of them are released into the United States through the Rio Grande Valley due to a Mexican policy across its border in Tamaulipas, a senior Border Patrol official said Friday during a media call. According to the official, the Mexican border state does not shelter families with children ages 6 years and younger.
As for those migrants who are being released here, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, misleadingly stated the migrants were not being tested for COVID-19, saying, “the people coming in, who are released immediately almost, they’re not tested, at all.”
However, asylum seekers, especially those that are released into the respite center in McAllen run by the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley are tested upon arrival.
The COVID-19 tests were handled by Catholic Charities but McAllen Mayor Jim Darling said that as of Friday, a company hired by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was taking over.
“A company hired by DHS started the testing today,” Darling said, which is done at a testing facility outside the McAllen bus station.
Darling said he met with the delegation of senators on Friday along with other local officials.
“I think everybody tends to at least agree that in order to solve the problem, we have to address the underlying issues in Central America,” Darling said of the meeting. “In order to make sense of it all, you need to address the underlying reason why people are coming, not just giving money to Central America but really a well thought out foreign policy program.”
Those sentiments were also shared by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who was part of a separate delegation led by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, R-San Antonio to the Carrizo Springs facility run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement — an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — for unaccompanied children at the border.
During a news conference following the visit, Omar placed blame on the Trump Administration for the current migrant situation, stating it was “a problem that was created by an administration that believed you had to create maximum pain in order for immigrants not to come to our border.”
“We also recognize, unlike Republicans, that there is a crisis happening with our neighboring countries,” Omar said. “That is why you see the vice president be the head of a task force that is going to address that because we can’t address migration without addressing the root causes of migration.”
Castro said everyone could agree that conditions at processing facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection were “horrendous” now and in the past.
“Those are awful conditions,” Castro said. “That even these facilities, that have better conditions than the CBP processing centers, are not the places for kids. That kids should be moved quickly along to their family sponsors.”
Children who enter the country without a parent or legal guardian cannot be expelled back to Mexico. They must be allowed to proceed into the country under the care of ORR.
However, children are coming in at a faster rate than CBP can process them into the care of HHS, so children continue to remain at CBP facilities. On March 25, CBP took 605 children into their custody, but HHS was only able to take 280 children into their shelters, according to official information from HHS. It’s led to prolonged detention that violates the 72-hour period Border Patrol is given to process children out of their custody.
“Our facilities were never designed to hold children any longer than you know, a few hours. And in some cases, we’re obviously holding them much longer — days and sometimes even a week or so longer than we should,” a senior Border Patrol official said Friday during a media call.
HHS reported that as of March 25, CBP held 5,495 children in their custody. HHS continues to add shelter space while CBP is working to add processing areas.
Most recently, the senior Border Patrol official speaking on background announced a new addition at the Donna soft-sided facility, which the senate delegation toured. A video captured by Cruz showed overcrowding at the facility.
Of all the children in Border Patrol facilities across the southwest border, a little over 60% are in the Valley, according to a source knowledgeable of the situation.
“HHS is building a soft sided, soft sided facility on that site. So we can transfer some of those children much quicker into their care, we continue to try and ensure that the kids that we have in our custody are provided the showers, the you know, the meals, the outdoor recreational activities. But it is a bit of a challenge for us when you have as many unaccompanied children as we have within our care,” the official said.
In addition to the site at Carrizo Springs, other shelters and intake sites were recently added by HHS in Midland, Dallas, San Diego and San Antonio. However, the average time to process a child out of an HHS facility and under the care of a legal guardian in the United States is about 37 days, according to ORR officials who recently spoke about processing times in February.
HHS officers were also embedded into CBP facilities to initiate the placement proceedings earlier into the process.
BY BERENICE GARCIA AND VALERIE GONZALEZ
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