Florida Dem Lawmakers Denied Entry To Facility Housing 1,000 Migrant Children

Source: Talking Points Memo/AP




By JOSHUA REPLOGLE and BEN FOX | June 19, 2018 3:22 pm

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson accused the Trump administration of a “cover-up” after officials denied him entry Tuesday to a detention center for migrant children in South Florida where he had hoped to survey living conditions.

Nelson and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, both Florida Democrats, went to the contractor-run Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children following reports it was receiving detained migrant children who had arrived in the country illegally.

Wasserman Schultz said the facility was being used for an estimated 1,000 children, aged 13 to 17, who arrived here as unaccompanied minors as well as children separated from their families at the border. She said two other facilities in South Florida were being used for younger children.

“It is an affront as the senior senator of this state that an agency head would tell me that I do not have entrance into a federally funded facility where the lives and health of children are at stake,” Nelson said.

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