congresswoman nanette barrigan from california who visited the detention facilities in clint and el paso yesterday. congresswoman, i d like to begin with you. that s your area there in southern florida. what did you find there at this largest facility holding children in the united states? well, i found an overcrowded place that children have no place being there. beds stacked up on each other, bunk beds where the children can barely walk. right across the hall from adolescent girls are adolescent boys, and when they need to use the bathroom at night, they have to go outside to porta toilets. and you know it rains in florida almost every evening, and god forbid in the wintertime. so people were walking around this facility with masks on their faces and i couldn t
so when it was time to go, i said, i am not leaving this place until i see every single girl in this facility, regardless of whether it s intake, whether there are diseases, whatever is there, i want to see the girls. so when i went in to see the girls, i was astonished at the living conditions, the bunk beds, the staff wearing masks and all of the upper echelon of the facility are men. not one single one of them speaks spanish. and the three top people who work there, three months ago three women who speak spanish were terminated, and i asked them, why were these women terminated, why are they no longer here?
from the forestry service, very, very recently. prior to that they had been outside or in tented facilities for the 56 days prior to our arrival that morning. they were crying. their affect was sad. profoundly sad. scared. in that cell was a stainless steel toilet. we tried to operate the sink, when the sink didn t operate the women said to us, no, that sink isn t working. we were told we could drink out of the toilet. that is clean water. and that is what they had been doing. congresswoman fredricka wilson who hosted the tour at homestead today said there were efforts to try to see more of the homestead facility. they wanted to show us the property. we went to a very large auditorium-style facility that was empty. we saw children playing in a playground at a distance. we went into one area i said where is the educational
obviously going through any of the procedures, getting the proper visa, the proper paperwork to cross a border. one can only wonder once he set foot in north korea, was he an illegal as he would put it? that is a bit of a light hearted view of what s going on here, but it is clear this administration thinks if you are a person of privilege you can do what you want with impunity. and if you are not, if you are a person of color, if you are an immigrant trying to come here for a better life, we re going to throw you in facilities even if you are a child and we re not going to let anybody see the conditions that we are subjecting you to. i d like angela to jump in here because the candidates are flocking to this homestead facility. the l.a. times says the complex is a symbol of some of president trump s harsher immigration policies that have been by voters. it offers a rallies point against trump without getting
detention facilities and prison ns where we house inmates after they are convicted of crimes. i have never once seen a facility completely block people from entering to visit people, visit their loved one, their family members, their clients. and it does conjure up the sort of worst of the worst when you are wondering what the administration is doing to and with these children inside those facilities. i think they would be smart to shine a light on what s going on in there. right. so people can see for themselves how these refugees, how these immigrant children are being treated. and, glen, you talk about how these children are being treated. what about the legality of this? the homestead center is a for profit facility and the clint, texas detention center is a border patrol government facility. how does that distinction affect the legal process? does it determine the course of action that can actually be taken to see what s happening inside?