The governor’s office also said the drinking water at the Midland unaccompanied minors facility was “not proven safe” and that the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality has notified the encampment that it needs to “address the serious water issues.”
“From a lack of safe drinking water in one location to a COVID-19 outbreak in another, the Biden Administration has no excuse for subjecting these children to these kinds of conditions,” Abbott said. “President Biden’s refusal to address the border crisis is not only enabling criminal actors like human traffickers and smugglers, but it is exposing innocent unaccompanied children to illness and potentially unsafe living conditions.”
The press statement did not say any children had in fact been sickened by water at the facility or that the water is contaminated, only that state authorities would be inquiring further.
Facilities for unaccompanied children are not an invention of the Biden administration, though Republicans have blamed the White House for a record-setting volume of illegal immigration into the U.S.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas believes former President Trump left his department unprepared for a surge on the border, while Republicans ascribe the surge to Biden enacting policies such as the deportation freeze.
The federal government leased the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas to house up to 3,000 of the unaccompanied minors who are entering the U.S. in unusually high numbers.
Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX-11) said at a press conference this week that, unbeknown to local authorities, the Biden administration also relocated hundreds of unaccompanied minors to Midland.
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Hayden Sparks
Hayden Sparks is a senior reporter for The Texan and a lifelong resident of the Lone Star State. He has coached competitive speech and debate and has been involved in politics since a young age. One of Hayden's favorite quotes is by Sam Houston: "Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."