Richard Vogel/AP
When Wednesday’s second Democratic presidential debate turned to the topic of immigration, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) seized the opportunity to share a disturbing story of seeing immigration detention facilities up-close.
Harris recalled her visit to a private detention center in Homestead, Florida, after the first Democratic debate last month. When she and former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro were not allowed entry to the facility, she took it upon herself to find out what was going on behind locked doors.
“So I walked down the road, I climbed a ladder, and I looked over the fence, and I’m gonna tell you what I saw,” she said. “I saw children lined up by gender being walked into barracks.”
She then trained her ire on President Donald Trump. “The policies of this administration have been facilitated by laws on the books that allow them to be incarcerated as though they’ve committed crimes,” she said. “These children have not committed crimes, and should not be treated like criminals.”
.@KamalaHarris recalled her visit to a private detention facility in Florida: “I walked down the road, I climbed a ladder, and I looked over the fence, and I’m gonna tell you what I saw. I saw children lined up single file based on gender being walked into barracks.” pic.twitter.com/LvEqhAnMhj
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 1, 2019
