On this day a year ago, *Senator Jeff Merkley,* was refused entry into a McAllen TX detention camp. [View all]

[Leghorn21]

If not for him, a lot of us would have never known such places existed in America.

THANK YOU, GOOD SIR

RESPECT

Link to tweet

A U.S. Senator from Oregon was turned away from a detention center for migrant children, including those separated from their parents at the U.S. border under a new immigration policy.

In a Facebook Live video on Sunday, Sen. Jeff Merkley walks up to a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, that has become a center to hold children detained at the border. In the video, he explains that his staff had sought permission to enter the facility, but that permission was declined by Homeland Security.

At the entrance to the facility, where the windows and doors are blacked out, he runs into a woman entering the facility who asks him to leave. He then requests to speak to a supervisor and waits outside for roughly 10 minutes. At that point, the police arrive, and soon after, the supervisor steps out of the facility, only to tell Merkley that he doesn’t have permission to talk about the center. Eventually, Merkley is asked to leave.

When an organization has something to hide, not allowing members of congress to see it, in a democracy, is completely unacceptable,” Merkley said in an earlier Facebook Live video from the day. “What’s going on is an effort to prevent the press from being able to report to the American people what is happening. And that’s simply unacceptable.”

more:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/sen-jeff-merkley-turned-away-from-border-facility-for-children.html