U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon wasn’t the only federal official barred from entering an immigration facility in recent days. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey tweeted that his office was also blocked from entering “a migrant processing facility where families are being separated”:
“When the elected representatives of the people can't observe how our government is operating, we're in an upside down world.”
It’s an upside-down world where a facility supervisor not only refused to give Merkley a statement about kids under his watch, but then also called the cops on him before kicking him off the property. “American citizens are funding this operation,” he later said, “so every American citizen has a stake in how these children are being treated and how this policy is being enacted.”
What we do know is that even before entering detention, migrant kids can face abuse from the very agents rounding them up. According to internal government documents dating back to 2009, children have suffered emotional, physical, and sexual violence at the hands of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents. But instead of getting these agents under control, Trump wants to hire thousands more—and keep elected officials locked out of any oversight whatsoever. This is authoritarianism, pure and simple.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “has some explaining to do,” immigrant rights leader Frank Sharry tweeted following Menendez’s revelation. “They seize children from their parents and lock them away in facilities that members of Congress and their staffs are denied access to.” Menendez continued: “This is outrageous. Sec. Nielsen owes us answers.”