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WASHINGTON – President Trump and his top immigration officials on Sunday challenged reports that migrant children are being held in horrific conditions in federal detention centers. The administration claimed that the government was applying surveillance standards even though it was trying to accommodate and handle an influx of refugees. migrants.
The stories of sickness, hunger and overcrowding have increased in recent days, but Kevin K. McAleenan, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Acting Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services. US immigration, said the facilities were safe. .
Inspired by a report from the New York Times and El Paso Times in which border patrol agents and others at a facility in Clint, Texas, described children in tears, chicken pox, scabies and shingles and inadequate medical care, Mr. McAleenan rejected the details as "unfounded".
"What I can tell you now is that there is enough food and water," he said in an interview for "This Week" on ABC. "For over a year, there have been showers."
However, he and Cuccinelli acknowledged that the government's resources had been severely tested by the influx of asylum-seekers on the south-western border.
"This is an extremely difficult situation," said McAleenan. "I do not deny that there are difficult situations at the border."
Speaking to reporters, Mr Trump called the report on Clint's installation a "hoax."
"The fake media, especially the failing group @NY Times, writes hateful and exaggerated stories about detention centers at the borders, "he said. wrote on Twitter. "First, people should not enter our country illegally, but only for us to care for them. We should be allowed to focus first on US citizens. The Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials have done an excellent job. "
The Times said in a statement that he was standing next to the article. "We are confident in the accuracy of our reports on the detention centers of the US border patrol," the statement said.
While Congress is scheduled to return Monday after a week-long break for the July 4 holiday, lawmakers are preparing to confront misery accounts at border facilities and reports that police officers Border patrol, past and present, scorn migrants and make vulgar remarks about the Democratic legislators of a private Facebook group.
Mr. McAleenan and Mark Morgan, Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, were called to testify this week before the House Oversight and Reform Committee to discuss these concerns.
Mr. Cuccinelli, speaking of "Fox News Sunday", said that the places of detention where he went personally were safe and that they were well managed. He blamed part of the lawmakers, who struggled for months to reach an agreement on $ 4.6 billion in humanitarian aid for agencies and officials working on the southwestern border.
"If they continue, MPs come to complain, but do not solve the problem," said Mr. Cuccinelli, referring to a group of Democratic lawmakers who last week visited facilities at the border with Texas. and migrants held there.
"This is the height of hypocrisy," he added.
With long deferred help approved prior to the suspension of Congressional work, Mr. McAleenan said the Ministry of Health and Social Services' ability to take care of migrant children has improved.
In the Democratic caucus, however, the debate over the allocation of this funding has left wounds, with several members opposing the approval of the money without additional oversight. Congress is yet to pass legislation to fund all agencies and departments in the coming fiscal year.
"He can say that we have to spend more money in a broken system, in an inhumane system," said representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and one of the lawmakers who said she was "in need of money. went to Texas last week, citing Mr. McAleenan's remarks. Her vote against aid, she said, "was because we knew it was not the choice that we needed our country to go forward."
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