MCALLEN, Texas – When Vice President Mike Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.

When reporters toured the facility before Pence, the men screamed that they’d been held there 40 days, some longer. They said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. It was sweltering hot, but the only water was outside the fences and they needed to ask permission from the Border Patrol agents to drink.

Pence toured two migrant holding facilities Friday with Republican senators in an effort to defend the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis following reports of inhumane conditions at the facilities.

The first center he visited, while not homey or comfortable, was only two months old, cleaner and allowed Pence to paint a rosier picture of the treatment of migrants held in federal custody. But it was much harder for Pence to deny what he’d seen at the second facility, and he instead described the conditions as the result of the migrant border crisis the administration has been warning about for months.

“I was not surprised by what I saw,” Pence said later at a news conference. “I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.”

The vice president’s office said it specifically instructed the Border Patrol agents not to clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see the overcrowding and scarce resources, like lack of beds, and see how serious the crisis is at the border.

“That’s the overcrowding President [Donald] Trump has been talking about. That’s the overwhelming of the system that some in Congress have said was a manufactured crisis,” Pence said during a news conference after visiting the second facility. “But now I think the American people can see this crisis is real.”

Pence’s comments were at odds with recent statements from Republicans, as well as Trump, who have accused Democrats who have visited similar facilities of exaggerating the poor conditions. Trump earlier Friday called recent media reports and comments from Democrats about poor conditions “phony.”

And earlier this month, the president downplayed concerns about how migrants are being treated at the facilities.

“Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions,” Trump wrote in a July 3 tweet.

Pence said the rough conditions are why the administration recently requested and Congress approved $4.6 billion in aid for the border, and he accused Democrats of not supporting more funding for additional beds at facilities for migrants.

He also defended the job being done by the employees at the detention centers.

“I was deeply moved to see the care that our Customs and Border Protection personnel are providing,” Pence said. “Coming here, to this station, where single adults are held, I’ve equally been inspired by the efforts of Customs and Protection doing a tough job in a difficult environment.”

Pence’s visit was the latest move by both political parties to use border trips to highlight their case for who is at fault for the border crisis caused by a surge in Central American migrants and what should be done to remedy it.

Republicans have accused Democrats of failing to get on board with legal changes to the asylum system that would make the flow of migrants easier to handle, while Democrats have charged Trump’s policies and rhetoric are callous and making a bad situation worse.

The political fight over the border is likely to only intensify as both parties prepare for the 2020 presidential race, in which immigration will be a top issue.

Border officials sought to counter some of the men’s claims at the second facility Pence visited.

Michael Banks, the patrol agent in charge of the McAllen facility, said the men there are allowed to brush their teeth once a day and are given deodorant after showering. But he conceded that many of the men had not showered for 10 or 20 days because the facility previously didn’t have showers.

There were no cots for them to sleep on because there wasn’t room, Banks said. Instead, they are each given a Mylar blanket. He said they are also given three hot meals a day, along with juice and crackers.

After he toured the first facility, Pence described a much better situation than the one that has been relayed by Democrats and in news reports.

He said Trump wanted him there with media cameras to see for themselves how people were being treated.

“Every family I spoke to said they were being well cared for, and that’s different than some of the harsh rhetoric we hear from Capitol Hill,” Pence said. “Customs and Border Protection is doing its level best to provide compassionate care in a manner the American people would expect.”

Pence first toured the cavernous facility built in May to handle overcrowding, where 800 people are living. Most were lying on kindergarten-style napping mats on the floor, covered with thin, tinfoil blankets. In another room, children, all under 8 years old, were seated in front of a television watching an animated Spanish film.

Pence asked the children if they had food and were being taken care of. They all nodded, and some said “sí.” A few children shook their heads no when asked if they had a place to “get cleaned up.”

As Pence toured the facilities, a House committee was having a contentious, partisan debate back in Washington over how migrants have been treated. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., requested to be sworn in when appearing as a witness before the panel to show she was telling the truth when she retold a story about a migrant woman who said she had to drink water from the toilet because her sink broke.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, accused her of playing to her millions of Twitter followers.

Some Democrats have described the detention centers as “concentration camps” and say the U.S. government is holding children in “cages.” Several children have died after crossing the border and being taken into federal custody.

Pence said it was heartbreaking to hear from children who had walked two or three months to come to America and cross the border illegally, but he ultimately blamed Congress for failing to pass legislation that would deal with the influx of migrants at the southern border. </s> WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence toured two detention facilities on the Texas border Friday, including a Border Patrol station where hundreds of men were crowded in sweltering cages without cots.

Some of the men said they were hungry and had been held there for 40 days or longer.

“Look, this is tough stuff,” Pence acknowledged at a later news conference.

“I knew we’d see a system that is overcrowded,” he added. “It’s overwhelmed and that’s why Congress has to act.”

Pence’s office said the tour was part of an effort to show the Trump administration is providing adequate care for migrants. But the scene the vice president witnessed is sure to spark new criticism of the conditions facing migrants in U.S. government facilities.

The caged migrants were being held in an area at the McAllen Border Patrol station. When detainees saw reporters arrive, many began shouting, saying they had been there for 40 days or more and they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. Agents guarding the cages were wearing face masks. The press pool covering the vice president was removed within 90 seconds.

The conditions were described by a pool reporter from The Washington Post, who said the fenced cages were so crowded that it was impossible for all the men to lie on the concrete.

The scene resembled what an inspector general found in a scathing report delivered last week based on trips to Border Patrol facilities near the Rio Grande, including the station Pence visited. The report quoted a senior government manager as calling the situation a “ticking time bomb.”

Michael Banks, the agent in charge of the McAllen station Pence visited, said the men held there were allowed to brush their teeth once a day. He said they were given deodorant after showering, but conceded many of the men had not showered for 10 or 20 days. He also said the longest any man had been there was 32 days.

President Donald Trump said earlier Friday that he had dispatched Pence to the border to dispel reports of dire conditions at the migrant detention centers.

“They’re crowded because we have a lot of people, but they’re in good shape,” Trump said. He complained about “phony” reporting on conditions by The New York Times.

Earlier in his tour, Pence visited another detention facility with a series of large white tents where most of the detainees were lying on kindergarten-like mats with thin, tinfoil-like blankets. Many of the families there were to be released within 72 hours. Pence told reporters every family he spoke to there said they were being well cared for.

“And while we hear some Democrats in Washington, D.C., referring to U.S. Customs and Border facilities as ‘concentration camps,’ what we saw today was a facility that is providing care that every American would be proud of,” Pence said.

After visiting the second site, Pence had a more sober assessment. He stressed that he had called for more Department of Homeland Security spending because of the overcrowded situation, including a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid package that Congress passed recently.

The Trump administration has also been under fire over conditions inside a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, where children were found in filthy conditions and keeping watch over younger kids amid the overcrowding. Five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by the government.

Central American families fleeing violence, poverty and drought have been coming to the U.S. in record numbers this year, peaking in May, when the Border Patrol made nearly 133,000 apprehensions. Facilities to detain adults and children quickly filled up, forcing many migrants to languish in unsuitable Border Patrol facilities much longer than the 72 hours normally required by law. </s> Vice President Mike Pence played down reports of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions at two migrant detention centres in Texas that he visited Friday, but he acknowledged the gravity of the humanitarian crisis unfolding along the United States’ southwestern border.

The tour gave journalists covering the vice president a rare glimpse inside a Border Patrol station near McAllen, Texas, where they observed nearly 400 men crammed inside a cage with no space to lie down and no mats or pillows, according to pool reports.

Before members of the news media were ushered out of the facility, some of the detainees shouted that they had been there for more than 40 days, were hungry and could not brush their teeth. One pool reporter described the stench as “horrendous” — some of the agents wore face masks — and said it was sweltering inside the detention centre, which is less than 10 miles from the Rio Grande, the river that divides the United States and Mexico.

“I was not surprised by what I saw,” Pence said later at a news conference. “I knew we would see a system that was overwhelmed. This is tough stuff.”

Pence was effusive in his praise of Border Patrol agents, whom he referred to as “compassionate.” But instead of tamping down criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the tide of refugees, many from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, the photos and videos that emerged from the tightly choreographed tour further inflamed critics.

The visit came 10 days after the release of a scathing report by the independent watchdog arm of the Department of Homeland Security on the poor conditions at migrant holding centres near the border. More than a dozen adult detainees have died while in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since the beginning of last year, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The same day Pence visited the border, thousands of demonstrators across the United States held protests and candlelight vigils to express their opposition to the White House’s immigration policy. In Aurora, Colorado, protesters raised a Mexican flag in front of a local detention centre.

“It’s apparent that crowding hundreds of people in cages in sweltering heat without showers or basic necessities is neither humane nor compassionate.”

At the news conference, Pence tried to deflect the criticism to Democrats in Congress, calling on them to provide additional funding for more beds for the unauthorized immigrants detained by ICE. He also sought to highlight his role in a $4.6 billion emergency spending bill that tries to address the border crisis; it was approved by Congress last month and signed by President Donald Trump on July 1.

Michael Banks, the patrol agent in charge of the McAllen detention centre, said in a news media briefing that the migrants had been provided three meals a day by local restaurants, along with juice and crackers.

Because of space limitations, he said, male detainees cannot have cots, but they had been given mylar blankets that look like aluminum foil. Crinkling sounds from the blankets could be heard by journalists, who were allowed inside the facility for about 90 seconds.

Earlier Friday, Pence visited a cavernous detention centre in Donna, Texas, that can accommodate up to 1,000 people. It was built in May and houses about 800 migrants, according to pool reports.

The vice president was accompanied by the second lady, Karen Pence, and three Republican senators: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Lee helped interpret for Pence, who had asked several migrant children questions in English, according to a pool reporter.

When Pence asked the children if they had food and were being taken care of, they nodded and a few said “sí,” according to the pool report. But when he inquired if they had a place to “get cleaned up,” the children shook their heads.

Two children told Pence that they had walked for two to three months to reach the United States. He then said “God bless you” in English and “gracias,” according to the pool report.

Several Democratic presidential candidates criticized Pence’s appearance at the detention centres. Among them was Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and a secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama.

“Make no mistake, @VP, this is the result of your administration slashing aid to Central America and undermining the asylum process,” Castro said on Twitter on Saturday. “You and Donald Trump share the blame.”

On Friday, Pence excoriated one of Trump’s favourite targets, CNN, calling its coverage of his visit to the detention centres “dishonest.”

“And while we hear some Democrats in Washington, D.C., referring to U.S. Customs and Border facilities as ‘concentration camps,’ what we saw today was a facility that is providing care that every American would be proud of,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks in McAllen. </s> Just a day after Vice President Mike Pence made a trip to the Texas-Mexico border near McAllen, Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, will do the same.

Peters, at the invitation of Texas Reps. Filemon Vela and Vicente Gonzalez, will visit the U.S.-Mexico border near McAllen and Brownsville, Texas, Saturday where he will meet with Border Patrol agents, detention center staff, migrant families and nonprofit organizations that are supplying humanitarian aid.

“The San Diego community has come together and provided for those seeking asylum, but we are not the only community to see the rise in asylum-seekers at our border,” Peters said in a statement. “As a member of Congress, it is my job to investigate the result of this administration’s policies, and I need to see the conditions in South Texas for myself. I look forward to talking to families and children who are living through this crisis and hearing from the organizations on the ground who are providing vital services.”

Peters is one of at least 19 congressional members from across the country who are visiting border facilities following a report last week from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that highlighted dangerous overcrowding, squalid conditions and prolonged detention of children at five migrant detention facilities in Texas.

Some facilities are so intensely crowded that they lack the number of needed beds and the report includes photographs of detained migrants sleeping nearly on top of each other on napping mats with only tinfoil-like blankets for warmth.

At some of these facilities, migrants were given wet wipes to clean themselves, according to the report, and inspectors also found no laundry facilities.

Investigators also reported that children in custody had few spare clothes, and some were not being given hot meals.

The conditions at some of the facilities also pose a serious safety risk for agents and detainees, according to several senior managers at the facilities, with one senior manager at a facility telling investigators the situation was a “ticking time bomb,” according to the report.

During a stop in San Diego earlier this week, Pence defended detention conditions while being questioned by reporters and criticized Democratic members of Congress who have compared the facilities to concentration camps.

The vice president told reporters that Customs and Border Protection agents are providing migrants aid, and after visiting the newer Donna detention facility near McAllen on Friday along with nine Republican congressional members, he told a group of reporters the work of the CBP agents would make every American proud.

“I couldn’t be more impressed,” he told reporters. “Every family I spoke to said they were being well cared for.” </s> WASHINGTON – With television cameras in tow, Vice President Mike Pence toured a Border Patrol facility in Texas on Friday as Republicans pushed back on reports that migrants detained in such centers are being held in deplorable and dangerous conditions.

Beneath a vinyl tent that doubles as a processing center for migrants who cross the southern border illegally, Pence approached a woman bouncing a young boy on her lap and asked where she’s from.

“El Salvador,” she said through a interpreter.

“Are you and your children being taken care of here?” Pence asked. “Are they treating you well here? Do you have food?”

The woman nodded her head yes.

Pence’s trip to the facility near McAllen, Texas, with a group of Republican senators, comes amid reports of dangerously overcrowded conditions at some detention facilities. At least six migrant children in border facilities have died since December.

As Pence was touring the facility, House Democrats back in Washington were holding a high-profile hearing on what they said were inhumane conditions they found when they toured another detention facility in Clint, Texas.

But Pence told reporters he “couldn’t be more impressed” by what he described as “the compassionate work” by Border Patrol agents at the facility near McAllen.

“Every family that I spoke with told me they were being well cared for,” he said, noting what he heard was different from what he called “the harsh rhetoric” coming from Democrats.

But it’s not just Democrats who have complained about the conditions at detention facilities.

Independent investigators for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security visited Border Patrol facilities in western Texas in May and found dozens of migrants packed into spaces so tight that some had to stand on toilets.

After visiting five facilities in June, the inspector general released a report describing dangerously overcrowded conditions.

More: Protesters turn out ahead of Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Texas detention center

The facility that Pence toured on Friday is a processing center and not one of those cited as being chronically overcrowded. But it's also where the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has said migrants are receiving substandard care.

The facility, an air-conditioned tent complex, opened in early May on the border about 20 miles from McAllen and just yards from an international bridge connecting the United States to Mexico. It is broken up into four 8,000-square-foot pods that resemble a high school gymnasium with a linoleum, rock-patterned floor. There is space for intake processing and restrooms with showers and laundry facilities.

About 800 people were being held Friday in the facility, which officials said had a capacity of 1,000.

A reporter traveling with Pence described seeing detainees lying on kindergarten-like napping mats on the floor, covered with a thin tinfoil-like blanket. In one room, the intake facility, a crowd that appeared to be more than 100 people sat on benches. Most appeared dirty, and officials said they were waiting for showers and had been brought in earlier Friday. Some of the children were crying and sleeping.

In one room, Pence and second lady Karen Pence approached a couple of boys sitting on a bench.

“I’m the vice president,” he said. “Are they taking good care of you here? Do you have enough to eat?”

The boys nodded their heads yes.

Touching testimony: ‘They tore out a piece of my heart’: Migrant mother describes toddler’s illness, death

“What we saw today is a facility that is providing care that every American would be proud of,” Pence said later at a roundtable discussion that included Border Patrol officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Slamming Democrats who have called the situation on the border “a manufactured crisis,” Pence said the U.S. has a moral obligation to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws.

“The facts are, we have a crisis on our southern border that is being driven by human traffickers,” he said.

Migrant roundup: Donald Trump: Immigration raids begin Sunday, will target criminals 'as much as we can' </s> Vice President Mike Pence visited two migrant detention centers in Texas Friday, and the conditions that greeted him at the McAllen Border Patrol Station, which houses adult migrants, were horrifying.

According to The Washington Post, Pence saw more than 400 caged men at the McAllen detention center, “appeared to scrunch his nose when entering the facility,” and stayed only “for a moment then left.” WaPo reporter Josh Dawsey, who also toured the facility, described the stench there as “horrendous.”

"The cages were so crowded that it would have been impossible for all of the men to lie on the concrete," Dawsey wrote in his press pool report of the visit:

During the visit, the some of the men were recorded shouting, "No shower." Pence and the Senate Republicans who accompanied him, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, did not speak to the caged men.

Pence acknowledged the unacceptable conditions at McAllen. "I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed," he told reporters. "This is tough stuff."

But the Vice President later took to Twitter to complain that some journalists had overlooked the comparatively better conditions at the other detention center he had toured, the Donna Processing Facility, which is housing families. "CNN is so dishonest," the Vice President tweeted. "Today we took reporters to a detention facility on the border for families and children and all told us they were being treated well."

The Donna camp is newer than the one at McAllen, and had air conditioning. During the Vice President’s visit, children watched television and ate snack foods, and at that facility Pence did interact with migrants. But images there showed the kids using aluminum blankets and sleeping cots on the floor, and when asked if they had a place to “get cleaned up,” some children shook their heads to indicate that they did not.

On Twitter, Pence blamed the conditions at McAllen on congressional Democrats. "These men were in a temporary holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund additional bed space," he wrote.

House Democrats passed the Republican-controlled Senate’s $4.6 billion border aid package in June. But many congressional progressives do not support efforts to provide more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection agency for fear of placing additional resources in the hands of a Trump administration that has an ongoing history of mistreating migrants.

"It’s deeply difficult, with the cruelty and the abuses that are happening," Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal told Politico Saturday. "To give more money — it’s just impossible for some people to vote for that."

President Trump’s promised ICE raids, targeting thousands of migrant families in 10 cities, are scheduled to begin Sunday. </s> Vice President Mike Pence saw the overcrowded conditions facing migrant adults and children in Customs and Border Protection custody firsthand when the highest ranking member of the Trump administration visited two federal detention centers in Texas Friday ahead of controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting undocumented immigrants.

"To be honest with you, I was not surprised by what we saw," Pence told reporters Friday, citing the humanitarian crisis and congestion. "This crisis is real, the time for action is now."

Joined by a group of reporters, Senate Republicans and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Pence visited two facilities in the Rio Grande Valley: the Donna Processing Facility, temporarily housing families, and the McAllen Border Patrol Station, housing single adults who have been found crossing into the United States illegally.

In Donna, Pence saw oversized, air-conditioned facilities, with children and their parents lying on cots, watching animated movies and eating snacks.

In McAllen, it was a much different scene: Pence toured a swelteringly hot room called a sally port with hundreds of men, a strong smell of sweat and overcrowding so extreme there was no room for cots, the migrants left to sleep on concrete beneath mylar blankets.

"The Vice President's office specifically instructed CBP to not clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see how serious the crisis at our border is (overcrowding, lack of resources, beds)," an administration official said in an email, noting that there were Secret Service concerns over Pence entering the sally port, but the Vice President's office pushed for press access.

Asked by CNN whether the conditions for the detained single adult immigrants were acceptable, Pence said no.

"No, it's not. That's the reason why we demanded that Congress provide $4.6 billion in additional support to Customs and Border Protection," the vice president said in an interview following both tours and a roundtable with Border Patrol officials. "The McAllen station, where our cells are overflowing ... ought to be a very clear message to every American that the time for action is now and the time for Congress to act to end the flow of families that are coming north from Central America to our border is now."

Pence's visit comes ahead of Sunday's scheduled ICE raids targeting migrant families with court-ordered removals that has previously been called off by President Donald Trump. The upcoming ICE operation is expected to target approximately 2,000 people and take place over several days in major cities across the nation.

Across the country, advocacy groups have been hosting "Know Your Rights" trainings and circulating fliers and social medial posts with guidelines about what they say immigrants should do if ICE agents show up at their door.

In McAllen, Pence did not engage directly with any of the men, but he did speak with some of the children and mothers in Donna, asking them if they were well cared for. They all nodded yes. Children told him their journey to the United States by foot took two and three months. In Donna, there were rooms filled with health supplies, snacks and changes of clothes for the migrants, many of whom had arrived at the facility with shoes and pants crusted in mud from the journey.

The men in the sally port in McAllen told CNN they had been in Customs and Border Protection custody for more than 40 days. They said they hadn't had access to showers or toothbrushes. They yelled before reporters that they were hungry.

"This isn't human. I'm not a terrorist," one man said.

Patrol agent in charge Michael Banks disputed some of those characterizations. He said a trailer with showers had arrived Thursday, though it was possible some of the men had not bathed yet. He said there were 88,000 disposable toothbrushes on site and that the migrants got three hot meals a day from local restaurants. He said the space, which, despite the heat, does have air-conditioning, was cleaned three times a day. He said none of the migrants had been there longer than 32 days.

The trip came weeks after unannounced inspections of Border Patrol facilities by an internal Department of Homeland Security watchdog found extreme overcrowding and children younger than 7 being held in custody for longer than two weeks -- far more than the allotted 72 hours -- among other "urgent" issues discovered. The watchdog found additional violations of detention policy, such as a lack of hot meals, inadequate access to showers and limited access to a change of clothes.

Additionally, images of squalid conditions and thinly stretched resources found in news reports and congressional Democrats' descriptions of their own visits have captured the nation's attention.

Pence said there should be the "same standard of care" for both families and single adults, defending the disparate conditions.

"What you saw today was a very clean facility where people were being detained indoors, and then you saw a temporary facility that was constructed because this facility is overcrowded. And we can't keep people in a cell beyond what the rules and regulations allow for, but everyone in that temporary facility is getting health care, they're getting hygiene and the Customs and Border Protection is doing their level best in an overcrowded environment and a difficult environment to address this issue, but Congress has got to act," he said.

The images of the vice president walking through the Donna facility Friday stand in stark contrast to photographs of overcrowded conditions facing families with children by DHS inspector general just weeks before. Overcrowded conditions have eased considerably following the movement of most migrant children to Health and Human Services facilities thanks to new funding from Congress. There was a 28% drop in numbers of migrants apprehended at the border in June, in part due to the season, but also, Pence said, because of support from Mexico.

Pence said he had read the report, but added, "I can't account for that," when pressed by CNN about images of conditions similar to those of the McAllen facilities for families with children featured in the DHS inspector general's report.

"The facility you saw today represents the level and the standards of care that we are working to bring to all those caught up in this crisis. Remember, it was just a few short weeks ago that Congress finally acknowledged the crisis and gave us an additional $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid. Now we're going to continue to improve, we're going to continue to provide care at the standard the American people expect," he said, calling on Congress to overhaul asylum laws and close what he characterized as legal loopholes.

Officials say the overcrowding among children has largely been alleviated because of the supplemental funding that Congress just passed. As a result, most have been moved out within the 72-hour time limit to HHS facilities.

Though Pence's office also extended invitations to Senate Democrats for the Friday visit, none were in attendance, underscoring the highly politicized situation as the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border unfolds. A group of congressional Democrats will tour the area on Saturday.

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii had told CNN on Thursday that she did not want to be part of a politicized trip.

"I don't want to participate in what is basically the Trump show, the Trump-Pence show. What do you think they are going to see? You have a President saying, 'Everything's just fine. These facilities, these detention centers are just being run great.' Yeah, that's what they're going to see. But we know from all of the reports that things are not great," she said.

Hirono continued, "Believe me, when any of us visit, they will make sure that they see what they want us to see. And that's not real." </s> McAllen, Texas (CNN) Vice President Mike Pence saw the overcrowded conditions facing migrant adults and children in Customs and Border Protection custody firsthand Friday, becoming the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to visit two federal detention centers in Texas ahead of controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting undocumented immigrants this weekend.

"To be honest with you, I was not surprised by what we saw," Pence told reporters Friday, citing the humanitarian crisis and congestion. "This crisis is real, the time for action is now."

Joined by a group of reporters, Senate Republicans and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Pence visited two facilities in the Rio Grande Valley: the Donna Processing Facility, temporarily housing families, and the McAllen Border Patrol Station, housing single adults who have been found crossing into the United States illegally.

In Donna, Pence saw oversized, air-conditioned facilities, with children and their parents lying on cots, watching animated movies and eating snacks.

In McAllen, it was a much different scene: Pence toured a swelteringly hot room called a sally port with hundreds of men, a strong smell of sweat and overcrowding so extreme there was no room for cots, the migrants left to sleep on concrete beneath mylar blankets.

"The Vice President's office specifically instructed CBP to not clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see how serious the crisis at our border is (overcrowding, lack of resources, beds)," an administration official said in an email, noting that there were Secret Service concerns over Pence entering the sally port, but the Vice President's office pushed for press access.

'Time for Congress to act'

Asked by CNN whether the conditions for the detained single adult immigrants were acceptable, Pence said no.

"No, it's not. That's the reason why we demanded that Congress provide $4.6 billion in additional support to Customs and Border Protection," the vice president said in an interview following both tours and a roundtable with Border Patrol officials. "The McAllen station, where our cells are overflowing ... ought to be a very clear message to every American that the time for action is now and the time for Congress to act to end the flow of families that are coming north from Central America to our border is now."

Pence's visit comes ahead of Sunday's scheduled ICE raids targeting migrant families with court-ordered removals that had previously been called off by President Donald Trump. The upcoming ICE operation is expected to target approximately 2,000 people and take place over several days in major cities across the nation.

Advocacy groups have been hosting "Know Your Rights" trainings and circulating fliers and social medial posts with guidelines about what they say immigrants should do if ICE agents show up at their door.

Pence would not answer four repeated questions from CNN on whether the Sunday ICE raids will separate families.

"The upcoming efforts are going to focus exclusively on individuals who have been fully adjudicated and ordered by a judge to be deported," he said.

Pence said ICE will prioritize immigrants with deportation orders who have also committed crimes in the US, though he was vague on whether those who had not committed crimes could be targeted as well.

"These will be individuals who are facing a deportation order, and the priority that Homeland Security and ICE will be placing will be on those individuals that have also committed crimes in this country, and represent a threat to our communities," he said.

In McAllen, Pence did not engage directly with any of the men, but he did speak with some of the children and mothers in Donna, asking them if they were well cared for. They all nodded yes. Children told him their journey to the United States by foot took two and three months. In Donna, there were rooms filled with health supplies, snacks and changes of clothes for the migrants, many of whom had arrived at the facility with shoes and pants crusted in mud from the journey.

Donna was one of the facilities built to accommodate the recent large increase of family crossings. Standing in a supply room in front of a wall stacked with Kool-Aid Jammers, Pence asked officials whether the children in custody are receiving adequate meals and snacks. They answered affirmatively. The level of care at Donna hasn't necessarily been the case for children at other facilities.

Yazmin Juarez, a mother whose toddler died weeks after they were released from ICE custody in 2018, recalled the death of her child in emotional testimony before a House panel Wednesday.

"I watched my baby girl die, slowly, and painfully, just a few months before her second birthday," she said through an interpreter, later beginning to cry recounting her 19-month-old daughter being admitted to the ICU.

And in testimony from Elora Mukherjee, attorney and Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, at a House Oversight Committee hearing on the border on Friday, Mukherjee said that in her interviews with hundreds of immigrant children and families that many children in custody are embarrassed to use the toilets because "they are open" and have no privacy.

"In Clint, we talked to girls who were so embarrassed that boys could see them while they were using the toilet," she said. "We talked to a boy who tried not to eat because he was so embarrassed to use the toilet."

Vice President Mike Pence visited the McAllen Border Patrol Station in McAllen, Texas on July 12, 2019

'This isn't human'

The men in the sally port in McAllen told CNN they had been in Customs and Border Protection custody for more than 40 days. They said they hadn't had access to showers or toothbrushes. They yelled before reporters that they were hungry.

"This isn't human. I'm not a terrorist," one man said.

Patrol agent in charge Michael Banks disputed some of those characterizations. He said a trailer with showers had arrived Thursday, though it was possible some of the men had not bathed yet. He said there were 88,000 disposable toothbrushes on site and that the migrants got three hot meals a day from local restaurants. He said the space, which, despite the heat, does have air-conditioning, was cleaned three times a day. He said none of the migrants had been there longer than 32 days.

The trip came weeks after unannounced inspections of Border Patrol facilities by an internal Department of Homeland Security watchdog found extreme overcrowding and children younger than 7 being held in custody for longer than two weeks -- far more than the allotted 72 hours -- among other "urgent" issues discovered. The watchdog found additional violations of detention policy, such as a lack of hot meals, inadequate access to showers and limited access to a change of clothes.

Additionally, images of squalid conditions and thinly stretched resources found in news reports and congressional Democrats' descriptions of their own visits have captured the nation's attention.

Pence said there should be the "same standard of care" for both families and single adults, defending the disparate conditions.

"What you saw today was a very clean facility where people were being detained indoors, and then you saw a temporary facility that was constructed because this facility is overcrowded. And we can't keep people in a cell beyond what the rules and regulations allow for, but everyone in that temporary facility is getting health care, they're getting hygiene and the Customs and Border Protection is doing their level best in an overcrowded environment and a difficult environment to address this issue, but Congress has got to act," he said.

The images of the vice president walking through the Donna facility Friday stand in stark contrast to photographs of overcrowded conditions facing families with children by DHS inspector general just weeks before. Overcrowded conditions have eased considerably following the movement of most migrant children to Health and Human Services facilities thanks to new funding from Congress. There was a 28% drop in numbers of migrants apprehended at the border in June, in part due to the season, but also, Pence said, because of support from Mexico.

Pence said he had read the report, but added, "I can't account for that," when pressed by CNN about images of conditions similar to those of the McAllen facilities for families with children featured in the DHS inspector general's report.

"The facility you saw today represents the level and the standards of care that we are working to bring to all those caught up in this crisis. Remember, it was just a few short weeks ago that Congress finally acknowledged the crisis and gave us an additional $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid. Now we're going to continue to improve, we're going to continue to provide care at the standard the American people expect," he said, calling on Congress to overhaul asylum laws and close what he characterized as legal loopholes.

Officials say the overcrowding among children has largely been alleviated because of the supplemental funding that Congress just passed . As a result, most have been moved out within the 72-hour time limit to HHS facilities.

Though Pence's office also extended invitations to Senate Democrats for the Friday visit, none were in attendance, underscoring the highly politicized situation as the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border unfolds. A group of congressional Democrats will tour the area on Saturday.

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii had told CNN on Thursday that she did not want to be part of a politicized trip.

"I don't want to participate in what is basically the Trump show, the Trump-Pence show. What do you think they are going to see? You have a President saying, 'Everything's just fine. These facilities, these detention centers are just being run great.' Yeah, that's what they're going to see. But we know from all of the reports that things are not great," she said.

Hirono continued, "Believe me, when any of us visit, they will make sure that they see what they want us to see. And that's not real." </s> In this photo tweeted by Vice President Mike Pence on Friday, July 12, 2019, Pence shakes hands with a Border Patrol agent during a tour of a migrant detention facility in Donna, Texas. (@VP)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NEXSTAR) — Vice President Mike Pence was in Texas Friday to show support for U.S. agents at the border.

The Vice President and a group of Republican Senators toured a migrant detention center in McAllen and sat down with border patrol officers to see how Washington can help with the influx of migrants crossing into Texas.

Pence met migrant children inside one of the country’s busiest detention centers and says the conditions he observed inside are good.

“Each and everyone one of the children and each and every one of the parents I spoke to told me they are being treated well,” Pence said Friday. “Our customs and border protection are doing their level best to provide compassionate care to these families.”

Pence painted a very different picture of how the migrants are being treated than New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Their sink was not working and we tested the sink ourselves and the sink was not working and they were told to drink out of a toilet bowl,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

Both Democrats and Republicans agree more needs to be done.

Congress passed a $4.6 billion-dollar immigration funding bill last month, but Senator Lindsey Graham says now it’s time to fix the system. He says that means adding more resources to keep up with the growing crisis.

Graham says the lawmakers will return to Washington and get to work to pass legislation as soon as possible.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence says the conditions under which asylum seekers are being held in facilities along the U.S. border with Mexico are unacceptable, after visiting two federal detention centers in Texas, remaining the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to say so. He calls upon the U.S. Congress to act.