New tent cities being built to house migrants at U.S.-Mexico border
Donna, Texas — Just feet from Mexico, the government has built a tent city in an effort to handle the flow of migrants along the border.
Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz said they need a facility like this because they're "over capacity."
The air-conditioned tent and another in El Paso will hold up to 500 men, women and children at a cost of nearly $37 million dollars. There are showers and bathrooms on site, with cameras in the common areas always watching.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan asked for more money to handle the influx of migrants along the southwest border, including children potentially being used as pawns.
"Young children are being put into the hands of smugglers coming all the way to our border with the promise that they'll be allowed to stay," he said.
To combat what DHS calls fraudulent families, immigration officials are planning to collect DNA at two undisclosed locations. The rapid DNA tests involve a cheek swab that within a couple of hours will help prove whether an adult and child are actually related. In the past two weeks, investigators say nearly 30 families were allegedly fraudulent.
