A North Texas lawmaker said he’s concerned people without criminal records are still being detained by federal immigration officials.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey visited the Dallas ICE Field Office facility Tuesday morning to see conditions for himself, he said.
“The biggest takeaway that I have from this is that the president is still lying about immigration.” Veasey said. “Of course, just a couple of days ago, if you recall, he made a statement that they're not interested in people that don't have a criminal background, and that's just not true.”
Veasey said “a good portion of the people, about a third of the individuals” that are being processed at the office have no criminal background.
“I tend to, when I hear about things that are happening bad about ICE, I tend to just automatically believe it,” Veasey said. “I just wanted to come and see for myself and be able to ask questions of the staff and watch other processing people in the end just so I can go back and share that information with colleagues and other people in Washington, D.C.”
Last July, Veasey, along with U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Julie Johnson, sent a joint letter to immigration authorities calling for an investigation into the facility after receiving complaints from constituents.
Those complaints included no access to proper ventilation, overcrowded rooms and people being detained for several days before being transferred to a detention facility.
In a statement, an ICE spokesperson at the time denied the allegations.
Veasey said he didn’t see evidence of poor conditions during his visit Tuesday afternoon and said he witnessed people being processed.
“If people are still being held here for long time periods, that is a big problem, not just because of the inhumane conditions and this not being a facility that is meant to hold people for long periods, but that means that they blatantly lied to a member of Congress today that was here visiting their facility,” he said.
One of the biggest concerns Veasey said he has is children being separated from families detained at the facility.
“If a parent here is undocumented, and the kid needs to go someplace else, and there's no grandmother or another relative here that can take the kid, then they have to be sent to a facility in San Antonio,” Veasey said. “That makes no sense at all to me.”
Angie Andrade, from the community organization La Colectiva, was outside the field office Tuesday morning helping answer questions from people who were there for their check-ins. She was in the same area where Veasey spoke to media.
She said one of the main concerns she hears now has to do with elderly migrants not having access to medication.
“We talk to the children, and they're just so worried that they're not getting their medications, that they absolutely need their medications,” Andrade said.
Veasey said there were some areas in which he would recommend improvements, such as providing undergarments for people who are experiencing a medical emergency or may be ill.
"Any concerns about people that are geriatric in age or have some other sort of malady not getting proper treatment here I would say based on what I learned today, I would say that's 100% true,” Veasey said. “Because this is not this facility is not set up to be long term."
KERA reached out to ICE for a response but has not heard back.
Dallas City Council member Laura Cadena, whose district includes parts of West Dallas, was also at the ICE facility Tuesday to support Veasey. She said she has also received calls from constituents who have complained about operations at the Dallas Field Office; she said her office has worked with Veasey’s to connect people with resources.
"There's things that we have oversight of and things that they have oversight of, so it's important that we're communicating with one another," Cadena said. “We share a lot of constituents together, so making sure that we share information and have conversations is definitely important to help both of our constituents."
Veasey said he will continue to monitor the Dallas ICE Field Office and plans to visit the Prairieland Detention Center in the coming weeks.
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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