Considerable blowback online followed the release of a video by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) which shows a woman the senator identifies as a Biden administration staffer attempting to prevent him from recording conditions at a heavily overcrowded migrant facility by blocking his view.
Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) led a delegation of senators to Donna, Texas, to tour a migrant holding facility where migrants have been packed into facilities designed for far fewer people.
“Please give dignity to the people. Please give dignity to the people. … Please respect the people, the rules,” the staffer tells Cruz as she continues to block his recording.
“So you work for the commissioner, you’re a senior adviser, you were hired two weeks ago and you’re instructed to ask us to not have any pictures taken here because the political leadership at DHS [Department of Homeland Security] does not want the American people to know it,” Cruz said.
“Your policies are unfortunately trying to hide them. I understand that you were instructed,” Cruz added. “I respect them, and I want to fix this situation, and the administration that you work for is responsible for these conditions.”
Many took to Twitter to blast the Biden staffer for attempting to prevent a sitting senator from documenting detained migrant facility conditions.
“This mindless drone of a woman is exactly the type who made sure the trains ran on time to the gulags,” wrote Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Trump.
“Watch the emotional manipulation this woman attempts in the video,” wrote director and producer Robby Starbuck.
“Just 2 years ago her party was demanding to see photos & videos inside these facilities. Trump let the media in. Biden won’t let them in. He’s trying to hide what he’s doing.”
“Proud of @TedCruz,” he added.
“Democrats think this woman is a hero,” wrote outspoken conservative actor Nick Searcy.
“This is unbelievable,” wrote congresswoman Diana Harshbarger (R-TN).
“This is shameful,” wrote conservative political activist Amy Kremer, along with a “#ImpeachBiden” hashtag.
“Breathtaking,” wrote talk radio host Andrew Wilkow.
“This woman reminds me of every campus crusader trying to block cameras from ‘safe spaces,’” he added.
“‘Please respect the people,’ says the Biden operative,” wrote political commentator Ian Miles Cheong. “How about you let those kids out of the cages?”
“Great work by @SenTedCruz to capture what’s going on inside Biden’s migrant detention centers,” wrote former Texas Assistant Attorney General Rob Henneke.
“Biden has excluded the media because he does not want you to see this. This is what Biden Administration considers ‘dignity & respect,’” he continued.
“More journalism here than from anyone in MSM.”
“Would someone tell this lady to shut up,” wrote political commentator Caleb Bonham.
“Her ‘heartfelt’ begging for dignity and respect is meaningless when you realize she’s just trying to hide the lack of dignity and respect she is enabling,” he added.
‘How humiliating for the Biden admin,” wrote political columnist Benny Johnson.
“The Biden administration’s strategy is, ‘If we can prevent the American people from seeing what’s going on, we don’t have to fix what’s going on,’” wrote former Georgia congressional candidate Mark Gonsalves.
“Shame on all those involved in this despicable deception,” he added.
“How sickening to have the Biden team Who wrapped & stacked those kids like baked potatoes Complaining that showing the world their disgrace Is what hurts their dignity,” wrote author and President of the Security Studies Group Jim Hanson.
“You did this Team Biden,” he added. “Own it & fix it!”
“This woman reminds me of every leftist in DC I’ve ever had a debate with,” wrote podcaster and columnist Derek Hunter.
“The Biden Administration is failing miserably at the border,” wrote singer-songwriter Lisa Matassa.
“They alone created this chaos and all the horrors that undoubtedly will follow from their actions,” she added. “America is under siege from within.”
“Just wow,” wrote radio host Mike Opelka. “Thanks for standing up @tedcruz.”
“Could you imagine if we did this during the Trump administration?” asked Katie Rose Miller, the former communications director for Vice President Mike Pence. “Sending a political appointee to block Democrat Senators?”
“Orwell saw this lady coming, didn’t he?” wrote Phoenix pastor James White. “The Ministry of Truth’s spokesperson, on camera, 2021. The perversity should cause us all to shudder.”
“These people have power now,” he added. “Evil, fully evil.”
“The people are in CAGES packed so tightly, wrapped in foil, that they look like a giant casserole!” wrote the PolitiChicks platform.
“They aren’t safe. How are children protected from predators, inc teen men? And forget ‘social distancing’. Yet she continuously blocks the camera out of ‘dignity and respect’? Wow.”
“It doesn’t get much worse than this,” wrote communications strategist Caleb Hull. “What a terrible look for the Biden administration.”
“She’s blocking a sitting Senator from filming the horrors of the Biden administration,” wrote one Twitter user. “I swear, this feels like something the Chinese government would do.”
“This one clip alone would be on a 24 hour loop at CNN if this was Trump,” the user added. “Don Lemon and Brian Stelter would be crying on tv.”
“Is this Russia? Is this North Korea? Really!!!” wrote another Twitter user.
“I think its[sic] pretty disrespectful to encourage a bunch of unfortunate people to come to your country and then imprison them and call it humane,” wrote yet another user.
“The Biden administration thinks its[sic] respectful to look the other way and not pay attention as they put people in cages!” another Twitter user wrote.
Cruz himself echoed similar concerns when he addressed the matter on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.
“Many Democrats like to pretend their open-borders policies are somehow humane,” he said. “There’s nothing humane about what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing at the border.”
“This is a humanitarian crisis, it is a health crisis, and it’s a national security crisis,” he added.
Discussing the facility in his video on Sunday, Cruz said that despite it being “designed to hold a thousand people” and “under COVID restrictions, its capacity is 250,” it currently “has over 4,000 people in it.”
“It is at a 1,500% capacity, and that meant you saw in these cages children, little boys and little girls, side by side, they’re not 6-feet apart,” he added. “In that facility, children are testing positive for COVID at roughly a 10% rate.”
The reaction comes as a patent double standard is repeatedly apparent from the attitudes toward the current president and former President Trump regarding migrant issues.
Last Monday, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe released a series of photos showing the disgraceful conditions of migrant children being held in South Texas. In response, many expressed outrage at the media silence — as well as that of Democratic politicians — over an issue that had caused an uproar on their part during President Trump’s presidency.
Congressman Cuellar, who lives along the Texas border with Mexico, leaked the photos to Axios while stating over 400 unaccompanied migrant children are living in “pods” designed to hold up to 260 people, according to Border Patrol officials.
The same day, O’Keefe released additional disturbing photos and a video depicting children forced to sleep on floor mats in overcrowded facilities which were rapidly opened amid a worsening humanitarian crisis and where up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant minors are being held, often well beyond the 72-hour legal holding limit for minors.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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