US Vice-President Mike Pence visited an overcrowded migrant camp in Texas on Friday, coming face to face with detainees held in horrific conditions and deploring an immigration crisis that he said was \u201coverwhelming our system\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pence travelled to the Mexico border as protesters rallied in several US cities urging the government to shut down what they call \u201cconcentration camps\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stench was horrendous, according to reporters travelling with Pence who were allowed into the area for 90 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men, who allegedly crossed the border illegally, were crammed into a space where there was not enough room for all of them to lie down on the concrete floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Vice-President visited the McAllen Border Station, where he was taken to a sweltering outdoor portal where 384 men were held in a caged area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They had no cots, mats or pillows, only silver polyester blankets. Grasping the chain link fencing, they shouted to reporters that they had been there 40 days or longer, were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has blamed Democrats for precipitating the crisis by resisting President Donald Trump\u2019s push for border funding, as opposition lawmakers split with the administration over how the money should be spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats ultimately bowed to pressure last month as Congress approved USD 4.6 billion in emergency aid to ease the swelling crisis that has seen an influx of migrants flood into the United States, mostly from impoverished Central American countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s witnessed here today, and the overcrowding of this border station, and the overall crisis at our border, is that Congress must do more,\u201d Pence said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael Banks, the patrol agent in charge of the McAllen facility, disputed the detainees\u2019 account of the conditions, saying they are allowed to brush their teeth once a day, and that the no one had been held there longer than 32 days.
\nHe said they were given three hot meals a day from local restaurants, as well as juice and crackers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Vice-President Mike Pence visited an overcrowded migrant camp in Texas on Friday, coming face to face with detainees held in horrific conditions and deploring an immigration crisis that he said was \u201coverwhelming our system\u201d. Pence travelled to the Mexico border as protesters rallied in several US cities urging the government to shut down what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65981,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65979\/revisions\/65981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}