Warren After Visiting Child Detention Facility: 'What I've Witnessed Here Is Truly Disturbing'

"When a woman comes here with her 4-year-old son, and says, 'I am asking for amnesty, I have been threatened by gangs in my home country,' we should at least give her a hearing. That is the least that is required of us as a country and as human beings," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters on Sunday. (Photo: CNN/Screengrab)

Warren After Visiting Child Detention Facility: 'What I've Witnessed Here Is Truly Disturbing'

"There are children by themselves. I saw a six-month-old baby. Little girls, little boys. And they're all on concrete floors in cages. There's just no other way to describe it. They're big, chain-link cages on cold concrete floors."

After President Donald Trump set the stage for asylum-seeking families to be detained en masse on military bases throughout the nation and demanded that anyone who crosses the border be deported without so much as a hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) visited an immigration processing center in McAllen, Texas on Sunday and said she was appalled by the conditions she encountered.

"When a woman comes here with her 4-year-old son, and says, 'I am asking for amnesty, I have been threatened by gangs in my home country,' we should at least give her a hearing. That is the least that is required of us as a country and as human beings."
--Sen. Elizabeth Warren
"There are children by themselves. I saw a six-month-old baby. Little girls, little boys," Warren told reporters after she toured the facility and listened to the stories of those who fled violence and persecution in their home countries. "Family units are together if it's a very small child, but little girls who are 12-years-old are taken away from their families and held separately. And they're all on concrete floors in cages. There's just no other way to describe it. They're big, chain-link cages on cold concrete floors."

In a series of tweets following her tour of the Texas processing center, Warren concluded, "What I've witnessed here is truly disturbing."

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Warren's tour and subsequent remarks came just hours after Trump demanded in a Twitter thread Sunday morning that immigrants must be denied due process and deported "immediately" upon crossing the border--a proposal the ACLU swiftly denounced as "illegal and unconstitutional."

Asked about Trump's tweet on Sunday, Warren said that denying immigrants basic dignity and a fair trial cannot be what the U.S. stands for.

"We are people who believe in the worth of every human being," Warren concluded. "When a woman comes here with her 4-year-old son, and says, 'I am asking for amnesty, I have been threatened by gangs in my home country,' we should at least give her a hearing. That is the least that is required of us as a country and as human beings."

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