Sen. Ted Cruz, laying blame on the surge of people crowding over the border on President Joe Biden and his administration, has shared a video showing overcrowded conditions of “just one of the pods” where migrant children are being held after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
“These are the Biden cages,” the Texas Republican posted in the Twitter message, where he posted the video Friday night. “Thousands of kids, in the midst of a pandemic, crammed in at 1500% capacity. This is just one of the ‘pods’ at Donna (Texas). There are SEVEN more, equally full.”
Cruz and fellow Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn led a delegation of 18 senators to inspect the border crisis and the holding facilities and told reporters in a press conference about the conditions they saw.
“We just saw a dead body floating on the Rio Grande coming by, someone who died crossing no doubt with a trafficker. This is inhumane what is going on.” Cruz said, while flanked by his fellow lawmakers. “Joe Biden and the Biden administration have made decisions that are causing these people to suffer and to do this in a pandemic is particularly irresponsible.”
Earlier in the day, Cruz tweeted footage of people he said were “smugglers” on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, saying they were “shining their flashlights at us, they are yelling at us.”
After Biden took office, there has been a surge of migrants heading to the border from South and Central America. The president has made promises to accept asylum seekers and reform information rules, and has been blamed for the current border situation.
The White House, which refuses to refer to the surge as a “crisis” maintains that the Biden administration has been trying to restore order at the border by cleaning up after former President Donald Trump’s actions.
At his first White House news conference, Biden referred to the climbing number of border arrests as part of a seasonal trend, even with the numbers climbing in recent weeks.
However, he did say he will keep in place one of Trump’s policies that allows agents at the border to quickly expel families, including asylum seekers. But he said he does not think unaccompanied minors should be subject to expulsion.
“I make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before Trump became president that have an incredibly negative impact on the law, international law, as well as on human dignity,” he said.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, Friday, agreed with the White House’s contention that Trump caused the current crisis, and wanted to inflict “maximum pain” to discourage migrants from coming to the United States, reports Newsweek.
“[The Biden administration is seeking] how to deploy that in the most effective way to address a problem that was created by an administration that believed that they had to create maximum pain in order for immigrants not to come to our border,” she said. “So when you have an administration now that says ‘we are going to deploy maximum humanity and dignity in treating people in regards to our policies, then we are excited because we see partners in humanity, we see partners in children who are coming to our country seeking help.”
Source: Newmax
