THEN: One month ago, Jeff Denham criticized the Pleasant Hill children’s detention center
YESTERDAY: McClatchy: Jeff Denham praises the Pleasant Hill child detention center, operated by a chain that has come under fire for unchecked sexual abuse at its facilities
IN THE MEANTIME: A max-out check from Donald Trump’s campaign
“Congressman Jeff Denham’s praise of a facility where children are being held against their will, and run by a private company that has come under fire for the rampant sexual abuse at its other facilities, is beneath the dignity of his office. Despite his half-hearted critiques of Donald Trump in 2016, Denham has voted with him 98% of the time, praised his child detention centers, and is happy to take his money.” – Drew Godinich, DCCC spokesperson
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
HEADLINE: A Congressman was denied entrance to a child detention facility. Now he’s praising it
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article215771705.html
Rep. Jeff Denham was so pleased with a California immigrant detention facility Monday that he said he’d be willing to have his own children stay there.
It was a big contrast from earlier this month, when the California Republican was denied access to the facility.
The remaining children there Monday had come to the United States without their parents — they were not separated by federal officials at the border. One girl he spoke with had come in a cargo truck with a mass of people.
“It’s very obvious these kids have been through a lot,” Denham said.
The two adolescent girls who had been separated from their parents and were at the facility the first time the congressman visited have since been reunited with their families, Denham said.
His biggest surprise was that about two-thirds of the 25 children in the facility, between ages 10 and 17, were Indian. One 16-year-old he spoke with flew to Mexico City from New Delhi on his own.
Denham said he spoke to the children personally.
“It was well-kept, very clean and orderly, they had their own beds and two to a room,” Denham described to McClatchy in a phone call, as media were not permitted to join inside. “They go on weekly field trips and had just gone to a university this week.”
The children could also roam around the facility and outside and went to class every day from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
It was a different picture from photos that surfaced months ago of handfuls of children fenced in, lying on mats with space blankets to keep warm. Reports of other facilities have said children are not allowed to leave the premises, and leaked audio from one facility featured multiple children crying for their parents.
However, Denham said while his concerns about the conditions of the child detention facilities have been alleviated, he still feels the Department of Homeland Security needs to answer questions on the children’s next stop.
One of the girls he spoke with knew family members in Houston, and he said it wasn’t clear why she was being held in California rather than a Texas facility.
“We need full transparency and we’re not getting it,” Denham said. “I want to know how many unaccompanied minors are coming in, how long they stay in these facilities, how many are sent to foster care, how many are sent to family members and how soon they’re getting court dates. Those questions haven’t been answered.”
On July 2, Denham had stood outside the same facility knocking for about five minutes before a security guard told him the employees inside had been instructed not to speak to him or let him inside.
[…]
While Denham said he believes Congress will pass something to correct the issue of child separations at the border, neither the House nor the Senate has put forth a bill with a realistic chance of passing yet. The House is on recess until September.