DALLAS — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Monday toured the Kay Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, where roughly 2,200 unaccompanied male teens are being housed as border crossings continue to spike.
Monday’s tour followed a trip last Friday to a facility in Donna, Texas, with fellow Republican senators.
“In Donna, there is a gigantic tent city that has been constructed. The Donna site is designed in normal times to hold a capacity of 1,000 people. Under COVID ratings it’s designed to hold 250 people. Today there are over 4,000 people in the Donna tent city,” Cruz said. “I took pictures and video of the conditions in the Donna facility. They’re shocking and they’re inhumane.”
“There [is] a series of cages in which children are lined up. They’re not six feet apart, they’re not three feet apart. They are lying on the floor. There are no beds – [the children are] side by side, touching each other,” Cruz continued. “[They are] packed into maximum capacity, most of the children wrapped in metallic, reflective emergency blankets.”
Cruz went on to say that the children at the Donna facility are testing positive for COVID-19 at a rate of about 10%. He noted that inside the Dallas convention center about six feet of space is maintained between cots.
“By any measure, conditions are better here than they are down on the border at the Donna tent city. Instead of sleeping on the floor, these children are now sleeping in cots. Very much like army cots,” he said. “Instead of being immediately next to other children, they’re six feet apart.”
Still, Cruz said, the Dallas facility appears to be overcrowded.
“That being said when you gaze across a room, a massive room, with 2,200 teenage boys, it takes your breath away. It’s tragic. It is horrific. And the most frustrating thing about it is that it was entirely preventable,” he said.
Cruz again attributed the influx of migrant crossings to President Joe Biden’s dismantling of border measures put in place by President Donald Trump.
“This crisis that is unfolding is the direct result of political decisions made by Joe Biden and his administration. Three decisions in particular provoked this crisis,” Cruz said.
Cruz said those political decisions were halting construction of the border wall, reinstating the catch-and-release program, and ending Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy.
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