Vice President Mike Pence tou꧂red a sweltering﷽, foul-smelling and overcrowded Border Patrol station in Texas on Friday night — and left calling for more funds to meet the growing migrant crisis.
“I was not surprised by what I saw,” at the McAllen Border ▨Patrol Station, Pence told reporters afterward.
“I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.”
, which served as the pool press for the v🐎isit, some 400 men who were alleged to have crossed the border illegally were crowded into a standing-room-only, chain-link-fenced cage.
“The stench was 🍸horrendous,” the pool report said. “The cages were so crowded that it would have been impossible for all of the men to lie on the concrete.
“There wereꦬ no mats or pillows — some of the men were sleeping on concrete.”
It was sweltering inside, and border patrol agents who guarded the cages wo🐲re face masks.
“When the men saw the press arrive, they began shouting and wanted to tell us they’d been in there 40 days or longer,” the report said. “The men said they were hungry and wanted to brushღ their teeth.”
The press was removed from the room afteℱr 90 seconds.
“The president drove hard to get a bipartisan humanitarian aid bill through the ꦑCongress — $4.6 billion,” Pence told reporters after the tour.
“We’re deploying those resources as we speak.”
Asked by a reporter about the conditions inside, Pence said, “I wouldn’t take the word of people that are being detained he🌊re in McAllen for how they’re being treated, but I’m very confident that they’re being provided with shelter and water and food and access to health care and access to hygiene.”
Additional reporting by Marisa Schultz and Nikki Schwab