Marsha Blackburn: Minors Smuggled Through Border 'Being Used as Pawns'

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who is running for a Senate seat in Tennessee, exclusively told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily that minors smuggled through the U.S.-Mexico border are “being used as pawns.”

In an interview with Breitbart News Editor in Chief Alex Marlow, Blackburn said she visited detention facilities in 2014 where border-crossing minors were being held. Those minors had either crossed the southern border unaccompanied or were smuggled through by illegal aliens posing as family units.

Blackburn said:

I’ve got to tell you, these children that were used to come across the border after the president’s DACA order, these children are being used as pawns. They arrive, they have a name of an individual and a phone number and they’re are to be released with this person. [Emphasis added]

The caregivers and caseworkers will tell you that they do not know if the person they are releasing this child to is in the country legally, if they’re truly who they claim to be, a relative or a next of kin. There is no proven way to vet them, you’re depending on this person saying that they are who they are. [Emphasis added]

….

I hope that the Democrats will join us in trying to resolve this problem because I will tell you, to see these children used as pawns is absolutely heartbreaking. [Emphasis added]

President Trump is holding a rally in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday night to campaign with Blackburn. The congresswoman told Breitbart News Daily that Trump is so popular in the state that there were supporters camped outside the venue all night to get a prime seat for the rally.

“People are already lined up,” Blackburn said. “We hear that they are … they camped out yesterday. And so people are there waiting to get in when those doors open today. We are so excited to have President Trump back in Tennessee. He is very popular here.”

Listen to the full interview here:

In 2014, Breitbart Texas broke the story of how unaccompanied and accompanied minor children were being held in cramped detention centers as U.S. Border Patrol and federal immigration officials were inundated with floods of illegal immigration.

Between October 2017 and February 2018, there has been an increase of 315 percent of the number of illegal aliens using minors to enter the U.S. in hopes to be released into the interior of the country through the “Catch and Release” program.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.