Beth Van Duyne shares video of migrants ‘crammed’ into Border Patrol holding facility
Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne on Tuesday shared a video from her tour of a migrant holding facility in Donna, showing scores of people packed together underneath Mylar blankets.
She was one of several people, including reporters, who saw the facility, which is supposed to hold no more than 250 individuals, according to CBS News. The tent complex on Tuesday was holding more than 4,100 migrants, including 3,200 unaccompanied children, CBS News reported.
The large group in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding facility is part of a continuing influx of migrants, especially children, coming over the U.S.-Mexico border. There were around 9,500 unaccompanied children being held in February, the highest number for any February ever.
Van Duyne, who represents the 24th district that covers part of Dallas-Fort Worth, said in her tweet, “Border Patrol warned Biden what would happen if he chose to open the borders” and the situation in Donna is “a direct result of the president’s reckless actions.” She wrote in a column for the Star-Telegram that Biden got rid of measures to secure the border, including halting construction on a border wall.
However, according to the Washington Post, what’s happening at the border is less of an emerging crisis than a continuation, and increase in, the surge of migrants underneath former President Donald Trump. The Biden administration is continuing Trump’s policy of expelling most unauthorized adult migrants, the Post reported.
But Biden is accepting unaccompanied children, unlike Trump, the Post reported.
The increase of migrants across the border has to do with poverty and violence in Mexico, as well as hope that it will be easier to cross the border under Biden, according to the Post.
Van Duyne makes no mention in her Star-Telegram column of the conditions in the holding facilities during Trump’s tenure, when at least seven children died in custody.
