AUSTIN, Texas — Rep. Beto O’Rourke and four other Democratic members of Congress toured a remote tent city in West Texas on Saturday where they said that 2,700 immigrant teens are being held at a cost of roughly $1 million per day.
The lawmakers urged the nonprofit running the facility not to renew a federal contract that expires Dec. 31, a longshot request that could effectively shutter the camp. It was supposed to be temporary but has instead taken in more children and taken on a permanent feel with soccer fields, a dining facility and tents housing separate sleeping quarters for boys and girls.
O’Rourke — a Texan who has been mentioned as a potential 2020 presidential candidate after nearly upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in his deep-red state — was joined by U.S. Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tina Smith of Minnesota, and California Rep. Judy Chu.
O’Rourke said he and his colleagues weren’t allowed to speak to the children in any meaningful way.
“They kind of nodded their heads, but what are they going to say when everyone around them is watching?” O’Rourke said after touring the facility. “But there was something in the look on their faces that we saw, the way that they weren’t really engaged in the sports that they were playing out on those fields.”
“We need to shut it down,” Chu added. “It is inhumane. It is a child prison. It has no right to exist.”
O’Rourke made no mention about his possible White House aspirations after making his fourth visit to the camp just outside Tornillo.
The lawmakers said 2,700 boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were being held at Tornillo. They described touring the tents housing the teens, but could only ask light questions. O’Rourke said he asked a few of them what countries they were from — Guatemala and Honduras, they said — and received assurances that the conditions were “OK.”
Tornillo opened as a temporary facility in June, amid what President Donald Trump’s administration described as an emergency situation on the U.S.-Mexico border. Since then, the contract keeping it open has been renewed, and the numbers of kids being held inside has grown, though determining how fast and by how much has proven difficult.