Rep. Frederica Wilson Wednesday accused people who are running privately owned migrant detention facilities of being all white and trying to bring in as many immigrants as possible as part of a "money making scheme."
"Instead of processing the children out, they're processing children in, so that they can use government money to expand this facility, which is already about the size of three football fields, with thousands of children, the Florida Democrat told CNN's "New Day."
Wilson said she visited a detention center in Florida on Tuesday, where she and other congressional Democrats saw "children crowded in a facility just like they were in prison."
"I said to one of the workers who were all white men, no Hispanic men, no Hispanic women, everyone running this institution are white men, I said to one of them, 'I feel so sorry for these kids,' He said 'we treat them well.'"
But, she said, the conditions are dangerous as boys and girls are housed close to each other, and she thinks the center should be shut down.
"I was truly concerned about the adolescent girls, and for some reason, they kept shifting my focus and trying not for me to see the adolescent girls," said Wilson. "I demanded that I would not leave until we saw the girls."
She said she eventually saw some of the girls she was demanding to see, but just the 17-year-olds and they were in a classroom.
"I saw where they sleep at night," she said of the children at the center. "Everyone uses the bathroom outside. So there's a porta toilet. If it's raining or whatever inclement weather, they have to go outside to use the bathroom."
And when the 17-year-olds turn 18, Wilson said, "ICE comes to that facility, shackles their hands, shackles their feet and takes them to a private prison just like that private facility that they're in. So they're profiting from those children. It's profit and greed."
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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