Senator Ted Cruz and 18 of his Republican colleagues have launched stunning pictures and video exhibiting youngsters packed into migrant camps, blaming President Joe Biden for the disaster on the southern border.
‘That is inhumane, it’s improper and it’s the direct consequence of coverage selections by the Biden administration to cease constructing the wall, to return to catch-and-release, and to finish the stay-in-Mexico coverage,’ Cruz stated at a press convention on Friday.
Cruz, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma and others shared heartbreaking photographs of a severely overcrowded holding facility in Donna, Texas, the place Lankford stated that ‘pods’ designed to carry 80 youngsters are full of greater than 700.
The remarks and new photographs got here after Cruz led the delegation on a midnight border tour late Thursday, throughout which Cruz claimed he might hear human smugglers ‘taunting’ Border Patrol from throughout the Rio Grande.
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Senator Ted Cruz and 18 of his Republican colleagues have launched stunning pictures and video exhibiting youngsters packed into migrant camps, blaming President Joe Biden for the disaster on the southern border
The senators stated that ‘pods’ at Donna designed to carry 80 youngsters are full of greater than 700
Ted Cruz tweeted pictures from his tour of an overcrowded shelter for migrant teenagers in Donna, Texas; he toured the shelter with fellow Republican senators
‘I do know why President Biden does not need the media to be right here — as a result of we do have an open border,’ stated Lankford, referring to Biden’s continued refusal to let journalists go to holding services or accompany Border Patrol brokers on patrol.
‘Final evening we stood below that bridge and watched as households, if they’d a six-year-old or youthful, inside hours you had been processed and launched into the nation,’ he continued.
‘If you happen to had been an unaccompanied minor, you had been despatched over to the Donna facility, which we went over and visited. That facility is designed for 80 folks in a pod, they usually had 709 folks… actually wall to wall in each one of many little plexiglass cells that they’ve, and other people flooding out into the hallway,’ Lankford stated.
Lankford stated that cartel smugglers had been utilizing giant teams of households and minors who give up on the border as a strategy to distract Border Patrol from different crossing factors, the place giant teams of solo adults can cross undetected.Â
‘That is nonsensical what we’re seeing in coverage, and we noticed none of this simply three months in the past,’ he stated.
On Thursday alone, roughly 6,000 adults and youngsters had been apprehended alongside the southern border, in line with a senior official — excess of in the course of the busiest months of the Trump administration in 2019.
Biden has insisted that his insurance policies will not be answerable for the massive surge of unlawful crossings on the border, and stated that he’s planning to open big new services to deal with and course of migrants.
‘I have been working from the second this began to occur to attempt to discover extra entry for kids to have the ability to safely — not simply youngsters, however significantly youngsters — to have the ability to safely be housed whereas we comply with by means of on the remainder of what’s occurring,’ Biden stated at a press convention on Thursday.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (crimson shirt) stand aboard a Texas Division of Public Security boat for a tour of a part of the Rio Grande on Friday. Native companies equivalent to DPS are aiding overwhelmed Border Patrol
Cruz led the delegation on an armed boat patrol of the Rio Grande as they realized about challenges in enforcement
Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and different members of a Republican delegation tour a bit of the U.S.-Mexico border on a Texas Freeway Patrol vessel in Mission, Texas on Friday
‘That facility is designed for 80 folks in a pod, they usually had 709 folks… actually wall to wall in each one of many little plexiglass cells that they’ve, and other people flooding out into the hallway,’ Senator Lankford stated
The Biden administration has not let reporters within the facility in Donna, Texas, however has let in lawmakers like Ted Cruz, who shared photographs such because the one above of kids being held there
However Cruz and the opposite Republicans slammed situations on the Donna facility as ‘inhumane’ and stated the disaster wouldn’t finish with out stronger enforcement on the border and swift elimination of those that cross illegally.
‘All of us right this moment witnessed the Biden cages. What is going on right here on the border is heartbreaking, and it’s a tragedy,’ Cruz stated.Â
‘The Biden administration is taking people who find themselves testing constructive for COVID-19 and locking them in cages facet by facet. That is inhumane,’ Cruz stated. ‘There was no six foot house, there was no three foot house, there wasn’t even a 3 inch house between youngsters lined up one, after the opposite, after the opposite.’
Cruz stated that 10 p.c of the present inhabitants of the Donna facility at the moment assessments constructive for COVID-19.Â
‘It’s improper, and it’s the direct consequence of coverage selections by the Biden administration to cease constructing the wall, to return to catch-and-release and to finish the keep in Mexico coverage.’Â
Cruz stated that the Biden administration had rejected his request to permit press representatives to accompany the delegation within the Donna facility — and identified that each the Trump and Obama administrations had allowed such media entry.Â
‘The Biden administration desires to cover what’s going on right here,’ Cruz stated. ‘The American folks have a proper to know what is going on right here.’Â
‘It is a man-made disaster. It was avoidable, it was preventable, and no matter your get together in the event you’re a Republican or a Democrat you need to take a look at what’s going on right here and say sufficient is sufficient, this should cease,’ he added.
The White Home has stated media will probably be allowed services being run by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol however has not stated when. A TV digital camera crew was allowed in a special facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, the place youngsters are being held in higher situations.
‘I’ll decide to transparency, and — as quickly as I’m able to have the ability to implement what we’re doing proper now,’ Biden stated Thursday. Requested when that may be, he responded: ‘I do not know, to be clear.’Â
‘It’s improper, and it’s the direct consequence of coverage selections by the Biden administration to cease constructing the wall, to return to catch-and-release and to finish the keep in Mexico coverage,’ stated Cruz on Friday
Cruz posted one other pic from his tour; he is blasted the Biden administration for its border coverage, saying it is led to a surge in migrants
Unlawful border crossing is on tempo to surpass latest data and will attain a 20 12 months excessive, officers stated
Earlier, Cruz posted movies exhibiting him on the financial institution of the Rio Grande at midnight, surrounded by tall grass or weeds, watching what he claims had been smugglers making an attempt to get migrants throughout the water and into the U.S.
‘That is Mexico proper over there, and you’ll see there are three smugglers proper there,’ Cruz is heard saying within the video, ‘standing on the Mexico facet taking a look at us.’
He additionally stated these smugglers had been taunting the senators on the U.S. facet. The footage is difficult to see, exhibiting grass and the darkish river with a number of flashes of sunshine. Cruz stated these had been the smugglers’ flashlights.
He posted one other dramatic video, describing it as ‘reside footage from the banks of the Rio Grande,’ that confirmed him standing on the river’s edge, giving a report on what he and the Republicans noticed on their midnight march.Â
‘So it is previous midnight and I am  standing on the shore of the Rio Grande, the water is correct behind me down. I am down on the Texas border together with 18 senators, we made the journey to see the disaster that’s taking part in out,’ Cruz stated as he stood within the weeds on the shoreline.
Canine might be heard barking within the background as he spoke.Â
‘On the opposite facet of the river is Mexico,’ Cruz famous. ‘The opposite facet of the river we’ve got been listening to and seeing cartel members, human traffickers proper on the opposite facet of the river, waving flashlights yelling and taunting People, taunting the Border Patrol, as a result of they know that below the present coverage the Biden administration, they will flood over right here.’Â
Cruz was joined by fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Maine Senator Susan Collins, and others in his travels.Â
Cornyn posted a photograph of the group of lawmakers after their tour, writing ‘Earlier than we started our full day of touring important areas across the southern border, the Senators I introduced all the way down to Texas needed to thank the @CBPRGVÂ midnight patrol for all of the arduous work they’re doing to maintain our nation protected amidst this disaster.’
And the Senate Republicans official Twitter account posted pictures and an replace from the expedition: ‘1:00AM on our southern border. 18 Senators are right here with Border Patrol on their evening shift. We noticed the large inflow of migrant crossings. Numerous ladies + youngsters. We had been heckled by cartels. It is a humanitarian disaster. And Joe Biden wants to handle it instantly.’
Beto O’Rourke, the previous Democratic congressman who lives in El Paso and misplaced his bid to unseat Cruz, retweeted it with a mocking reply: ‘THANK GOD YOU SURVIVED THE HECKLING!’Â
Democrats, who’ve blamed the Trump administration for issues on the border, blasted the journey as a ‘political stunt.’
‘In a determined try to mislead the nation, world-renowned political clown Ted Cruz and his hapless sidekick John Cornyn are bringing their present on the highway with their newest political stunt,’ the Democratic Nationwide Committee stated in an announcement on Friday.
‘If there’s one factor Ted Cruz is aware of how one can do, it’s to disingenuously grandstand for TV cameras. President Biden took extra motion to handle immigration points in sooner or later than Senate Republicans have within the final 4 years. If Senator Cruz and his colleagues had been severe, they’d be in Washington working with President Biden to be part of the answer,’ stated DNC spokesperson Eduardo Silva.Â
