Raul wanted to visit his future constituents.
Via Tucson Sentinel
A plan for U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva to tour the Nogales Border Station was cut short Tuesday when U.S. Border Patrol agents refused to allow five clergy members with him to enter the facility where more than 1,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America are held.
Grijalva, along with his daughter, Tucson Unified School District Governing Board President Adelita Grijlava and a member of U.S. Rep. Ron Barber’s staff, arrived at the gate around 2 p.m. Monday.
When they tried to enter the facility, “a person in charge” said Grijalva, said word had come from Washington, D.C., limiting who could tour the station.
“When we got to the gate, we were told that it came from Washington and that only the member of Congress and designated staff could take the tour, and I said ‘I’m not going to do that,’” Grijalva said.
His office had submitted a list of people who would tour the facility, he said, and there seemed to be approval from Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol station in Nogales started receiving unaccompanied children on June 6, part of the agency’s response to overwhelming numbers of children who have entered the United States through the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. In the past year, the number of unaccompanied children has spiked 90 percent from the year before.
Almost all the children are from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras and federal officials estimate as many as 70,000 may try to enter the United States this year.
More than 1,000 children have been in the Nogales station at one time and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security have been working to process them through Nogales to either facilities operated by Health and Human Services, or to family or guardians living in the United States.