Holding facilities being operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are "safe, humane, and secure," and if Congress had funded efforts at the level needed, detainees could be moved out of the crowded conditions occurring near the nation's Border Patrol stations, acting ICE Director Matthew Albence insisted Friday.
"We've been so aggressive with Congress trying to get the funding so that we can get those bodies out of the Border Patrol stations into facilities such as this," Albence told Fox News' "Fox and Friends," after a story was played showing network correspondent Griff Jenkins touring one of the agency's detention centers.
"We've been asking Congress for years to fund our detention at the level ... and they've failed to do so," said Albence. "If they had funded us with the 52,000 beds that we requested, you would not see the conditions in the border facilities right now."
Further, he said that people held in ICE centers are not there for punitive purposes or serving sentences for criminal violations, but are detained pending immigration proceedings or before they're deported.
Albence added that he would also disagree with those who characterize either ICE centers or those operated by the Border Patrol as "concentration camps," but pointed out that the Border Patrol facilities were never designed for long-term detentions.
He also defended ICE agents, who do not get a "whole lot of support from Congress and definitely not a lot of support in the media."
Officers are "merely enforcing laws," Albence said, and noted that $270 million was spent last year on medical help for detainees.
He added that he would tell people who want to abolish ICE that they don't know what they're talking about, as thousands of criminal arrests have been made.
Meanwhile, ICE has a job to do, Albence said, warning that if anyone interferes with its arrests, ICE will pursue criminal charges against them.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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