Texas congressman Henry Cuellar visited the McAllen Border Patrol Station at the Rio Grande Valley border on Saturday, where about 1,000 undocumented immigrants, mostly unaccompanied minors from Central America, are being sheltered. After seeing the facility, the Democrat was very outspoken about his opinion on the Obama administration's handling of the recent influx.

"We're playing defense on the one-yard line called the U.S.-Mexico border," Cuellar said according to The Monitor. "If we don't take it to the 20-yard line and work with them on the southern border [of Mexico] and also work with Guatemala, El Salvador, we're going to continue having them continue crossing over."

According to TheBlaze, the shelter did not want to let the media in, but Cuellar "made clear he wasn't going to be kept out." After viewing the shelter, said to be very overcrowded (with 75 percent of the inhabitants from Central America, according to Valley Central), Cuellar determined that the shelter is "bearable" and "helping them," but is also a waste of taxpayers' money.

"I've been saying, 'Use the nonprofits. Use the churches. Don't just use the taxpayers' dollars to take care of these young kids,'" Cuellar told TheBlaze. "[Obama] still has a long way to go to improve this. Don't just listen to the words of the bureaucrats up there in Washington, listen to the men and women that work here. The men and women of the Border Patrol know what's going on here."

TheBlaze reports that a new shelter is scheduled to open on July 11 for unaccompanied minors.

"I would say to Secretary Kerry and the administration that Mexico and Central America is certainly not on their radar," Cuellar continued.

There are reportedly just eight portable toilets in the facility; two of them are reserved for those with infectious diseases, according to TheBlaze. Cuellar said that these diseases were confirmed by Border Patrol agents to include chicken pox, tuberculosis and scabies.

"In fact, some of the Border Patrol [agents] have been affected by this," Cuellar said, adding that the agents are concerned about spreading disease to their families.

Cuellar also argued that those who are released from the shelter under the stipulation of going to court within 90 days with their travel plans will not comply.

"If they paid thousands of dollars and traveled hundreds and hundreds of miles to get over here and face very violent situations, I doubt that they're going to show up once they're here in the United States," he explained.

Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent and vice president of the National Border Patrol Council's Local 3077 in the Rio Grande Valley sector, agrees.

"The agents are extremely frustrated by the fact that these people are getting released," Cabrera said. "We're facilitating the illegal entry into the United States. It's like we've become part of the smuggling process."

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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