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Photos Depict Migrants Allegedly Crammed Into Texas Facilities

Inside a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility. CREDIT: Breitbart News
Inside a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility. CREDIT: Breitbart News

Overwhelmed by the record number of undocumented migrants crossing the border, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency is cramming individuals into federal processing centers. Internal pictures leaked Thursday to Breitbart News, a conservative news site, allegedly show rooms in a processing center so crowded that little of the floor can be seen.

The photos show few emergency blankets, adults and children sleeping on the floors of cells, and communal bathrooms. Here are five photos provided by Breitbart:

CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News
CREDIT: Breitbart News

The unprecedented spike of child immigrants, who are mostly from Central America, has pushed the United States government to make temporary shelters available at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and Naval Base Ventura County in California. Lackland has enough bed space to hold about 1,200 people, while the Ventura naval facility, which started receiving migrants this week, is equipped to hold 570 people.

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Both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported Friday that Central Americans are driven to America by rumors that “immigrants with kids can stay in the U.S. indefinitely.” The Los Angeles Times reported that Yoselin Ramos, a 24 year old from Guatemala, “had looked forward to being caught … because of the welcoming treatment they had assumed they would receive.”

But on Monday, White House Domestic Policy Council director Cecilia Muñoz emphatically stated that these immigrants would not qualify for the Senate comprehensive immigration bill and Obama’s presidential initiative known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that grants temporary legal presence to some undocumented youths who meet certain criteria, because of hard cut-off dates. She also said that anecdotal evidence suggests that children have no knowledge of immigration reform, but are simply fleeing from violence from their home countries. The Obama administration has declared the issue as an “urgent humanitarian situation,” with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson declaring the situation a level-four condition of readiness.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) argued Wednesday that President Obama’s immigration policies were actively responsible for the uptick in migrant crossers. Yet Republicans are not offering any of their own solutions. Despite President Obama holding off on taking executive actions on immigration to give Republicans an “opportunity” to pass legislation this summer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) memo for the upcoming House Republican agenda released Friday, “conspicuously” left off immigration.