Elizabeth Warren announces visit to migrant facility hours ahead of first debate

[BeckyDem]

By Kate Sullivan and MJ Lee, CNN

Updated 11:03 PM ET, Tue June 25, 2019

Washington (CNN)Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she will go on Wednesday to a facility in Homestead, Florida, that's holding unaccompanied migrant children -- a suddenly announced visit amid a fight on Capitol Hill over funding for the program that cares for such children and controversy over conditions at some border facilities.

"I'm going to Homestead tomorrow. Come with me," Warren said Tuesday night at a Miami town hall, after an attendee urged her to visit the facility in order "to bring the press" and "national attention" to the children.

The visit to Homestead -- just hours ahead of the first Democratic debate in Miami -- was previously unscheduled. Warren advisers said she had decided to make the visit after speaking to immigration advocates backstage before her Miami campaign event.

The facility, which is about 45 minutes from Miami, is an influx facility run by the Department of Health and Human Services for unaccompanied children, who remain there until placed with sponsors in the US. There are around 2,300 children currently at Homestead, according to Evelyn Stauffer, spokeswoman for the HHS' Administration for Children and Families.

"It's been a year ago right now, when we were first hearing about children separated from their parents at the border," said Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and presidential hopeful. "I went down to McAllen, Texas, and visited one of these facilities."

Warren said that during her visit last June to the Texas facility -- run by Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security -- she had seen "cage after cage after cage" and "people who were frightened, people who didn't understand what had gone wrong."
"This is a bad time in America's history," she said.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/25/politics/elizabeth-warren-visit-homestead-migrant-facility/index.html

[watoos]

1. Warren is saying and doing the right things

She may be the one. She is at the top of my list.

[BeckyDem]

3. Thank you.

[nolabear]

4. That would be awesome.

I’ve been pleading with public figures to go and take crowds. I’m proud of her.