Texas Congresswoman: "DHS Is Doing Nothing But Covering Up" Border Station Conditions
CLINT, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A Texas congresswoman has accused the Department of Homeland Security of a "cover-up" in response to an Inspector General's report that found poor conditions and "dangerous overcrowding" at Texas border stations.
CBS television affiliate KDBC reports that Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, made her comments Monday after going to border facilities in Clint and El Paso, Texas.
As a senior member of the @HomelandDems, I am at our Southern Border conducting oversight and inspecting facilities used to detain migrants. Join me on Facebook Live as I discuss what I confronted in Clint, Texas:https://t.co/8xKA0tjBU6
— Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) July 8, 2019
The facility in Clint which has recently been criticized for its treatment of migrant children held there. At one point lawyers who visited the site saith they saw 250 infants, children and teens locked up for up to 27 days in what was designed to be a short-term holding facility.
Jackson Lee said, "DHS is doing nothing but covering up from the top down and it is insulting."
She also says that agency leaders including Kevin McAleenan, who is acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, have failed to say how they will utilize the $4.6 billion appropriated by Congress to address the issues in the report.
"I want to remind everyone that the tragedy of the father and 23-month old that died on the Rio Grande did not have to happen. He attempted with his wife to enter legally on the Matamoros Bridge (Puerta México international bridge) and was told that the bridge was closed," Jackson Lee said. "That means that this individual could have had a safe way to enter. All he had to be told... 'wait sir, we'll open the bridge in three hours.' He did not get that right."
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)