Pence and senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee are expected to conduct private meetings with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in McAllen, home to a large Border Patrol temporary detention facility which was built in 2014.
Officials opened up the facility for a rare tour to the news media in June. The Monitor was not invited to that event.
Last week the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a report on five different Border Patrol facilities in the Rio Grande Valley, detailing squalid conditions.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, who has toured the facility before, visited again last week. Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is not expected to return with the delegation Friday. It is unclear if U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, also on the committee, will be part of the Friday visit, but the trip will be Pence’s second to South Texas in the past two years.
“The Senate passed bipartisan humanitarian relief – but much more must be done to SECURE our border & end this crisis!” Pence wrote on Twitter on Monday.
