Rep. Will Hurd said Tuesday he has “not seen” migrants being forced to drink toilet water, as reported by Democratic lawmakers who toured those facilities on Monday.
“I think Homeland Security responded to that pretty quickly saying that was not the case,” he said on CNN’s “Right Now” show, “But in all these instances, we should go back to the source and verify the comments and understand the contexts for where these comments came. Nobody should be drinking out of … toilet water, plain and simple, that shouldn’t be happening, but my understanding, I haven’t seen that.”
Democratic representatives toured three migrant facilities, including one in Mr. Hurd’s district, where Rep. Norma Torres, California Democrat, said she witnessed “inhumane conditions” that were “embarrassing” for the U.S.
Mr. Hurd, a Texas Republican representing a district covering much of the state’s border with Mexico, said the conditions of the facilities are better now then they were in 2015 before Mr. Trump was president.
He added the number of children in a detainment facility in his district has gone down from their highest point at 700 to 25 kids.
Mr. Hurd said these border patrol facilities are temporary holding facilities to for when they’re handed over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When CNN’s Brianna Keilar pushed back on kids reportedly being held longer than three weeks, he agreed.
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“Nobody should be in these facilities for long, let alone children, right? And I think what’s happening in Clint and El Paso is an example of some of the facilities across the country and even DHS, their inspector general did a report on these temporary facilities, identifying some of the problems and when people are in our custody, they should be treated humanely and properly,” he said.
Mr. Hurd also condemned a recent ProPublica report about a Facebook group where members who were current and former border patrol agents allegedly made lewd comments about dead migrants and Latino lawmakers.
“I think this should be investigated, which I know the Department of Homeland Security is doing and if people are indeed doing that, they should be fired because it is a violation of their code of ethics,” Mr. Hurd said, “This puts a bad stain on all the other border patrol agents that do things right every day.”
Congress passed a $4.6 billion border funding bill in May, which would address conditions that one attorney called “so dirty, so filthy, and so unsanitary that children are literally dying.”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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