Rick Perry: We've Warned Feds About Warehoused Children Since 2012

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that the state government has been trying to warn federal authorities about the problem of “warehoused” children caught crossing the border illegally since 2012.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on a visit to California, Gov. Perry reacted to the photographs published by Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby last week showing foreign children being held in crowded conditions in federal facilities near the U.S.-Mexico border. 

While the news made headlines across the country, the Texas governor said that the problem is one of many that the federal government has failed to address in the border states.

“These children literally ride on the top of rail cars from Central America,” Gov. Perry told Breitbart News. “They transfer across Mexico and then cross the border. 

“There are multiple issues with the security of the border, and we have spent hundreds of millions of Texas taxpayers’ dollars to try to address the problems over the past six years. We need federal authorities to do their constitutional duty to secure the border.”

As debates over immigration reform have raged in Congress, and the Obama administration has granted new leniency to illegal immigrants brought into the U.S. as children, the number of children entering the country illegally has grown, according to reports. 

The New York Times reported June 2 that nearly 50,000 children had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally since Oct. 1, “a 92 percent increase over the same period in 2013.”