DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- Senator Ted Cruz says he will visit Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Monday afternoon to tour the area set up to hold unaccompanied minors. He says the center is nearing its limit of 3,000 teenagers.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Cruz wrote the number of teenagers being brought to the convention is "an unsurprising fact considering that CBP was holding more than 5,000 UAC [unaccompanied children] in its custody before it opened."
Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn toured the border last week along with several senators from other states.
LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, says Governor Greg Abbott and Department of Public Safety should work more closely with the federal government to help kids at the convention center get visas to connect them with foster families.
"If the governor is sincere about these kids and not trying to use them for political posturing, he will recognize that behind each of these children is a father or a mother who had to make a gut-wrenching Sophie's Choice," says Fernando Dubove, national immigration counsel for LULAC.
Dobove says the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services already has foster homes available if the kids are allowed to enter the system.
"In baseball terms, they have a bullpen of foster families who have been vetted, they've been trained and are ready to take kids," he says.
Then, he says, relatives could be located. Dubove says that process will take time.
"There have to be background checks to make sure no one in that house, not just family members but any adult in that house, has a criminal history that might put those children in danger," Dubove says.
This weekend, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says five teenagers being housed at the convention center left without permission. They were found by Dallas police a few hours later and returned to the holding facility. HHS says "safety and security improvements" have since been made there.
