Senators react to border conditions after El Paso visit with Homeland secretary
EL PASO, Texas -- U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators visited the Mexican border in El Paso on Friday amid growing controversy over how the Biden administration is dealing with a surge in migrants, especially unaccompanied children.
Mayorkas made his second trip as secretary to El Paso "to view operations and receive a briefing on the processing, shelter, and transfer of unaccompanied children arriving at our border," DHS said.
The trip was closed to the news media and the public due to Covid-19 restrictions and privacy concerns, the agency said.
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said in a twitter post that he arrived in El Paso Thursday night and was shocked by what he personally observed.
"It was stunning to see how many people, including unaccompanied children, unlawfully crossed the border just last night," Portman said in a post on Friday accompanied by photos.
Last night I was at the southern border in El Paso, Texas.
— Rob Portman (@senrobportman) March 19, 2021
It was stunning to see how many people, including unaccompanied children, unlawfully crossed the border just last night. pic.twitter.com/rKC7mBbQf1
"The (Border Patrol) agents told me about how unaccompanied children and families are used to divert agents while traffickers move illicit substances like meth and other deadly drugs across the border," Portman wrote in another tweet. "The Biden admin must change its failed approach or these deadly narcotics will continue to make their way in."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who chairs the Senate's homeland security appropriations subcommittee, described on twitter a highly emotional moment he experienced while seeing the conditions at a migrant processing facility the group toured in El Paso on Friday.
"Hundreds of kids packed into big open rooms. In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13-year-old girl sobbed uncontrollably explaining thru a translator how terrified she was, having been separated from her grandmother and without her parents," Murphy said.
For clarification, kids are no longer separated from their parents at the border (in this case, the girl’s parents are in the US). But even though kids can now stay and apply for asylum, if they are traveling w relatives who aren’t parents, the relative can’t stay.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 19, 2021
He continued, "the desperation these kids and families are fleeing is hard to describe. The memory of that 13 year-old girl will be with me forever. So long as conditions are abysmal in places south, people will find a way to get here, no matter how high the wall is or how many border agents."
While Portman said the current border situation represented a failure by the Biden administration, Murphy found fault with the prior administration - saying Biden inherited a broken immigration system.
"The Biden Administration is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity," Murphy concluded. "They have a ton of work ahead to clean up the mess Trump left them, but their intentions are true."
The agents told me about how UACs & families are used to divert agents while traffickers move illicit substances like meth & other deadly drugs across the border.
— Rob Portman (@senrobportman) March 19, 2021
The Biden admin must change its failed approach or these deadly narcotics will continue to make their way in. pic.twitter.com/VrCnyrr1n3
A few quick takes from my trip to the border:
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 19, 2021
1/ the Biden Administration is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity. They have a ton of work ahead to clean up the mess Trump left them, but their intentions are true.
3/ Seeing the wall in person is unexpectedly devastating. How did it come to this, that a country defined by our warm embrace of immigrants now must be defined by our irrational fear of them? We must be better.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 19, 2021
(ABC News contributed to this report.)
