By Aruna Viswanatha
WASHINGTON—U.S. officials defended the Trump administration’s immigration policies on several fronts, pushing back forcefully against criticism of conditions at migrant detention facilities and planned deportation raids that have stirred controversy.
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Sunday that the federal government was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people who have been arrested crossing the southern border this year.
“My explanation is that it’s an extraordinarily challenging situation,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
An internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security said in a report last week that conditions at Border Patrol stations in South Texas are so dire that some detained migrants have been held in standing room only cells for days on end, and some at one facility pleaded for help from government inspectors visiting in June.
Democratic members of Congress have been particularly vocal in their criticism; several toured border facilities last week and said they were shocked by the conditions, including a woman who told them border agents told her she should drink water from a toilet.
Also speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan said she saw people sleeping on floors who said they hadn’t bathed in 15 days. “Literally every single woman confirmed what the one woman said, which is, ‘I asked for water and they said go drink it from the toilet,’” Ms. Tlaib said.
Mr. McAleenan played down some of the reports as unsubstantiated, and said that since Dec. 30, the agency had increased medical providers at border facilities from 20 to 200, dispatched pediatricians to them for the first time and built additional temporary facilities for families.
“Everyone in the entire chain of command was worried about the situation for children,” Mr. McAleenan said.
Republican Rep. Will Hurd, who represents a sprawling Texas border district and has sought to find a middle ground on immigration policy, said there was blame to spread around for the conditions at the border.
“And so yes, there is a lack of trust between congressional Democrats and the executive branch. But that doesn’t change the reality that we’re dealing with right now,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Hurd added: “Facilities, people that are overwhelmed. Border Patrol, they weren’t trained in order to handle children like this. They weren’t trained for the medical issues that they’re seeing. They were trained to be in between our ports of entry and grab people and apprehend people that are coming into our country illegally.”
Officials also said they expected to proceed soon with a series of deportations President Trump has threatened to pursue. Last month Mr. Trump said he would delay the raids for two weeks in order for Congress to pursue an agreement on changing U.S. asylum laws. On Friday, he told reporters the raids would “be starting fairly soon.”
The acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that authorities were prepared to go forward. “They’re ready to just perform their mission, which is to go and find and detain and then deport the approximately one million people who have final removal orders,” Mr. Cuccinelli said.
U.S. officials haven’t specified how many immigrants would be targeted in the planned raids, and deporting large numbers of them could present logistical challenges. ICE has thousands of officers around the country who can participate in such actions, but some have been deployed to the border in recent months to bolster security there.
Mr. McAleenan on Sunday explained the rationale for deportations, saying “a balanced enforcement process has to involve interior enforcement.” He added, “You can’t do this all at the border.”
Mr. McAleenan also responded to the recent disclosure of a private Facebook group of current and former Border Patrol agents who shared vulgar, violent posts, including fake images of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who has decried conditions at the border, forced to engage in sex acts.
Mr. McAleenan said on “This Week” that he wasn’t aware of the group, and that an investigation into the posts was ongoing. “The agents will be held accountable if they are CBP employees who did inappropriate things,” Mr. McAleenan said, noting that the agency had put several agents on administrative duties, and issued cease and desist letters.
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