GOP Senators Says Situation at the Southern Border Is 'Heartbreaking'
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks to the media after a tour of part of the Rio Grande river on a Texas Department of Public Safety boat on March 26, 2021 in Mission, Texas. The senator is part of a Senate delegation visiting the Texas-Mexican border. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A group of more than a dozen Republican senators led by Ted Cruz and John Cornyn visited the southern border on Friday to see firsthand the situation of the migrant children and families coming into the United States.

Ted Cruz earlier said that there is a "humanitarian, national security, and health crisis" on the southern border because of the political decisions made by President Joe Biden.

The 19 Republican senators received a briefing by officials on the situation at the border before they toured the Customs and Border Protection facility in Donna, Texas.

According to Ted Cruz, the facility designed for 250 migrants already had almost 4,000. The senators also took a boat tour in Mission, Texas, according to a USA Today report.

"All of us today witnessed the Biden cages. What is occurring here on the border is heartbreaking, and it is a tragedy. This is inhumane, it is wrong," Cruz said in a press briefing.

Cruz further noted that the Donna facility had a 10 percent COVID-positivity rate, which is a rate much higher than the U.S. average.

Sen. John Barrasso said that border agents told them that their jobs got harder since Jan. 20, when Biden became the president.

Republican senators had released pictures of the migrant families and unaccompanied children inside the southern border facilities.

Sen. Thom Tillis released photos of babies, which he said had been handed over by smugglers, Fox News reported.

Separately, Rep. Joaquin Castor and a group of Democratic House members also toured the Carrizo Springs in Texas, which serves as a temporary facility for migrant children and is run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Castro said in a press conference that they want to find solutions for this situation.

"We want to figure out how this system can work better, so that it's more humane, more respectful of people's dignity," Castro said after touring the Carrizo Springs facility.

President Joe Biden's Response

On Thursday, Biden said he would not apologize for undoing former President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

A senior Biden official projected that the numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border would likely rise during "spring caravans," and the government is eyeing to go after smuggling organizations that were manipulating migrants.

Smugglers had been encouraging parents to send their children alone as a result of the shift in the immigration policies under Biden's presidency, according to a Reuters report.

Last week, the Biden administration announced a new facility for migrant children in West Texas, which HHS would use to house and care for young new arrivals.

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul said the Biden administration had created this crisis of migrant children coming to the U.S., NPR reported. McCaul added that the traffickers are smart, as well as the cartels, and "they know our laws, policies."

Immigration officials have recorded more than 100,000 migrants trying to cross the southern border in February, with more than 14,000 migrant teens and children now in U.S. custody.

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