Trump administration officials defend detention center conditions

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and two of his top immigration officials defended the conditions at federal immigrant detention centers on Sunday, amid reports of squalor and overcrowding at several facilities.

Trump, in a tweet posted from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort, called the accounts of unsafe and unsanitary conditions "phony" and "exaggerated" days after an internal government watchdog issued a report describing "dangerous" overcrowding at facilities in Texas.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey before returning to the White House, Trump said detained migrants "who came from unbelievable poverty" were probably better off in the detention centers.

"If you look, people who came from unbelievable poverty, they had no water, they had no anything where they came from, those are people that are very happy with what’s going on, because relatively speaking, they’re in much better shape right now," Trump said.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, in an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” said he has been warning lawmakers for months that border security agencies were ill-equipped to handle the growing number of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.

"My explanation is that it’s an extraordinarily challenging situation," McAleenan told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. "We had an overflow situation with hundreds of children crossing every single day. ... I’m not denying that there are challenging situations at the border. I’ve been the one talking about it the most.”

McAleenan’s interview came after an internal Department of Homeland Security report detailed squalid conditions at five facilities in Texas. His comments also followed  a tour by a group of congressional Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens), of two Texas facilities where they denounced the treatment of detainees inside, saying they had inadequate access to food, water and medicine.

A DHS Office of Inspector General report released last Tuesday detailed “dangerous” overcrowding at several of the facilities and showed photos of detainees pressed against cell windows in crammed, standing-room only cells that far exceeded their intended capacity. The report also found that children often went days without having access to a shower, remained in soiled clothes and often slept on floors.

"We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those detained," the report said.

McAleenan said the department has done a “tremendous amount” to alleviate the pressure on detention facilities by having the U.S. Coast Guard medical corps provide additional medical care at border facilities, and by building additional temporary tent housing for children and families.

McAleenan dismissed a joint report published Sunday by The New York Times and El Paso Times that quoted border agents at a Clint, Texas, facility, who said they raised the alarm about the treatment of children at the facility, which has grappled with outbreaks of scabies, chicken pox and shingles.

“What I can tell you right now is that there's adequate food, water, and the reason those children were at Clint station in the first place was so they could have medical care and shower facilities,” McAleenan said.

Acting Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” blamed the influx of migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence in Central America on congressional Democrats, saying they should agree to Trump’s calls for stricter entry standards for asylum-seekers.

“You can complain about conditions; conditions are driven by those numbers,” Cuccinelli said. “So ultimately they’re complaining about the numbers that they’re attracting here.”

Rep. Rashida Tlalib (D-Mich.), who was part of the congressional delegation that toured the Clint facility last week, told ABC’s “This Week” she voted against a $4.6 billion emergency border funding bill that ultimately passed Congress last month because she and other like-minded Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez, did not want to direct money to a “broken” and “inhumane” system.

"Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said more money is not going to fix this, that they were not trained to separate children," Tlalib said. "That they don’t want to separate 2-year-olds away from their mothers. That’s not what they were trained for, that’s not what they signed up for in their service to our country. They signed up to protect the border, not to separate children, not to put people in cages."

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” took aim at Trump administration officials who described the reports of unsanitary conditions as unsubstantiated. 

"I’m just like, ‘What world are they living in?’ ” Merkley said.“From every direction you see that the children are being treated in a horrific manner. And there’s an underlying philosophy that it’s OK to treat refugees in this fashion. And that’s really the rot at the core of the administration’s policy."