Escobar calls on homeland security chief to resign: ‘her incompetence is hurting our country’

On MSNBC Thursday, El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar called on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign, claiming Nielsen’s ” incompetence and lack of leadership is hurting El Paso and our country. ”

” I am calling on the secretary to resign. Her incompetence is hurting the community, ” Escobar told host Ali Velshi .

Escobar’s call for Nielsen’s resignation comes as tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Central America, enter the U.S. to request asylum.

In El Paso Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said there are nearly 13,000 migrants in custody – an ” unprecedented ” situation. McAleenan said our nation’s immigration system has reached a ” breaking point ” and called on Congress to enact new legislation to address the problem.

McAleenan said the U.S. Border Patrol estimates it will have apprehended 100,000 migrants for the month of March 2019.

As local shelters and non-governmental agencies (NGOs) reach capacity, it has become a challenge to find shelter for asylum seekers released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In South Texas last week, Nielsen said the U.S. does not have the processing facilities to handle the number of asylum seekers entering the country. ” We’re out of detention space. If you see any releases (of migrants), first of all, it’s because there is a crisis. Secondly, we are doing everything we can to make sure we do not release migrants who do not have a legal right to stay in this country, ” said Nielsen.

During that same news conference in South Texas, Nielsen said the Trump Administration has not reintroduced the policy of ” catch and release. ” Nielsen told reporters, ” The president has made it very clear, more times than I can count, it is not the policy of the United States to catch and release. It’s not, but we are out of detention space. We need Congress to change the laws. We are looking at every possible way to detain those who have no legal right to remain in the U.S. and to remove them in a safe and orderly way. ”

In El Paso, the U.S. Border Patrol has set up a “transitional” camp underneath the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry to get the migrants arriving at ports of entry “out of the elements” while they are transferred to a processing facility.

On MSNBC, Escobar said the Department of Homeland Security should have been better prepared. “We have been sounding the alarm for months and months now that we were going to see increasing numbers of families and asylum seekers as the weather warms up, ” said Escobar, “Per the agency’s own records, when the weather warms up, that is their peak period. We’ve all known this was coming. ”

Escobar told MSNBC Nielsen’s role is to provide leadership for the Department of Homeland Security. “What we have seen instead of leadership and real solutions has been an implementation of Donald Trump’s policies of cruelty, ” said Escobar, “These policies by the Trump Administration that have been executed by Secretary Nielsen have made a challenging situation far more difficult. ”

Escobar acknowledged the work of local shelters who shelter asylum seekers while they meet up with sponsors or relatives elsewhere in the U.S. “In the absence of any leadership from (DHS) and in the face of their incompetence it is local communities like mine that have had to pick up the slack and that is absolutely unacceptable, ” said Escobar, “It’s our local NGOs, it’s our local citizens, it’s our local governments who have had to open up their wallets because of the lack of leadership from the Department of Homeland Security. ”

Escobar said an “immediate, humane solution” is needed to address the need to set the transitional camp underneath the port of entry bridge. “They are sleeping on dirt. They are sleeping out in the open. This is absolutely inhumane and unacceptable and it is up to the Department of Homeland Security to come up with a better solution, ” said Escobar, “The community is having to come up with the resources and solutions that she (Nielsen) is unwilling to or unable to come up with. ”

The El Paso Congresswoman told MSNBC a recently approved central processing center in El Paso is “absolutely” needed. However, Escobar said the processing center will not be ready and open for another six to twelve months. “That’s a midterm solution. In the short term, right now, we heed DHS to come up with a humane way to process these families. They should not be out under a bridge. They should not be out in the open. It shouldn’t be up to the community to solve this problem. This is a DHS challenge,” said the congresswoman.

Escobar said the surge in migrants arriving in the U.S. to request asylum “is a significant challenge for our country. ” She said “it could have been met with great strategy, with a thoughtful approach and with humanity, but because of the way this administration has chosen to engage and chosen to address this problem, a challenge has become chaos. ”