DHS Blocks Oversight of Migrant Detention Camps

DHS Blocks Congressional Staffers From Migrant Detention Facility

Staffers barred after reports of kids forced to eat rotten food, off floor. Newsweek: “The Department of Homeland Security has prevented congressional staffers from the House Oversight Committee from visiting additional migrant detention facilities along the southern border after allegedly making troubling discoveries in recent weeks at other detention centers, according to a letter sent to DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Thursday. The chairman of the panel, Democrat Elijah Cummings, wrote that in the past two weeks, a bipartisan group of committee staffers made visits to several facilities housing adults and children accused of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and heard concerning allegations from detainees. Afrer those visits, they were barred from conducting a second trip to see 11 additional facilities — a move that only creates further tension between the Trump administration and the committee as it continues to investigate the president’s immigration policies. Migrant detainees told the committee staffers that toddlers, including an infant, held at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) facilities were being fed burritos — as opposed to age-appropriate food — and a child was told by a CBP agent to drink spilled soup off the floor before receiving more food. Additionally, the detainees said children were held in cold rooms without the appropriate clothing, parents weren’t given enough diapers for young children and they were pressured into signing documents in English without translation, according to Cummings’ letter.”