Dems, Republicans air warring views on migrants’ conditions

WASHINGTON — Four House Democratic freshmen who recently toured detention stations for migrants along the Texas border told a House committee Friday of jam-packed, fetid holding areas “in front of the American flag” and accused President Donald Trump of intentional cruelty to discourage future arrivals. Firing back, a quartet of Republicans from border states told the same panel that Democrats weren’t doing anything to ease the crisis and blamed them for posturing that one said was aimed at “Twitter followers and cynical politics.” Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence was touring detention facilities in Texas. She criticized harsh policies “intentionally and cruelly created by a Trump administration dead set on sending a hate-filled message that those seeking refuge are not welcome in America.” Tlaib added, “It’s a dangerous ideology that rules our nation right now.” Departing the White House, Trump told reporters without evidence that Ocasio-Cortez’ account of women being told to drink from a toilet was “a phony story she made it up.” As if in counterpoint to Democrats’ testimony, Pence and eight GOP lawmakers toured a border station Friday in Donna, Texas, a vast collection of air-conditioned, interconnected tents built in May to temporarily handle 1,000 migrants and currently holding 800. “I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.” Back at the House committee, four border state Republicans sat at the same rectangular witness table as their Democratic counterparts and blamed Democrats for migrants’ problems.