Mike Pence Toured a 'Horrendous'-Smelling Detention Center Where Migrants Were Packed in Cages
On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence visited two migrant detention centers in Texas, and the conditions that greeted him at the McAllen Border Patrol Station, which houses migrant men, were horrifying.
According to The Washington Post, Pence saw more than 400 caged men at the McAllen detention center, “appeared to scrunch his nose when entering the facility,” and stayed only “for a moment then left.” WaPo reporter Josh Dawsey, who also toured the facility, described the stench there as “horrendous.”
"The cages were so crowded that it would have been impossible for all of the men to lie on the concrete," Dawsey wrote in his press pool report of the visit:
There were 384 single men in the portal who allegedly crossed the border illegally. There were no mats or pillows — some of the men were sleeping on concrete. When the men saw the press arrive, they began shouting and wanted to tell us they’d been in there 40 days or longer. The men said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. It was sweltering hot. Agents were guarding the cages wearing face masks.
During the visit, the some of the men were recorded shouting, "No shower." Pence and the Senate Republicans who accompanied him, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, did not speak to the caged men.
Pence acknowledged the unacceptable conditions at McAllen. "I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed," he told reporters. "This is tough stuff."
New video shows severe overcrowding of men in cages at Texas detainment facility during VP Pence's visit Friday.
A group of men detained behind chain link fencing shouted to news cameras, "No shower, no shower!" https://t.co/iysmT8IUE1 pic.twitter.com/35KKyxb6w8— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 13, 2019
But the Vice President later took to Twitter to complain that some journalists had overlooked the comparatively better conditions at the other detention center he had toured, the Donna Processing Facility, which is housing families. "CNN is so dishonest," the Vice President tweeted. "Today we took reporters to a detention facility on the border for families and children and all told us they were being treated well."
The Donna camp is newer than the one at McAllen, and had sleeping mats and air conditioning. During the Vice President’s visit, children watched television and ate snack foods, and at that facility Pence did interact with migrants. But images there showed the kids using aluminum blankets, and when asked if they had a place to “get cleaned up,” some children shook their heads to indicate that they did not.
On Twitter, Pence blamed the conditions at McAllen on congressional Democrats. "These men were in a temporary holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund additional bed space," he wrote.
House Democrats passed the Republican-controlled Senate’s $4.6 billion border aid package in June. But many congressional progressives do not support efforts to provide more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection agency for fear of placing additional resources in the hands of a Trump administration that has an ongoing history of mistreating migrants.
"It’s deeply difficult, with the cruelty and the abuses that are happening," Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal told Politico Saturday. "To give more money — it’s just impossible for some people to vote for that."
President Trump’s promised ICE raids, targeting thousands of migrant families in 10 cities, are scheduled to begin Sunday.
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