De Blasio calls Florida migrant shelter ‘a prison camp’
White House hopeful Bill de Blasio (D) on Thursday called the facility which houses migrant children in Homestead, Fla., a “prison camp” after the New York City mayor toured the facility.
“It looks like a prison … you’ve got a bunch of kids being marched around, teenagers, and it does not look like a place where teenagers are supposed to be or families are supposed to be,” de Blasio said after his visits. “I look at that, immediately I thought: that’s a prison camp.”
{mosads}“It’s not a rehabilitation center, it’s not temporary housing, it’s prison camp.”
“They didn’t do anything wrong but they’re being treated like prisoners,” he added.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on de Blasio’s remarks.
Several of de Blasio’s fellow 2020 candidates have promised to visit the facility while they are in Miami for the first primary debates this week.
As of June 16, some 2,450 unaccompanied migrant children between the ages of 13 and 17 were being held at the Homestead facility, according to a Health and Human Services fact sheet.
Scrutiny on the facility has been reignited recently after attorneys told The Associated Press about filthy, dangerous conditions in which children were being held at a border facility in Clint, Texas.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she saw migrants walked around “like little prisoners” after visiting the facility Wednesday.
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