Despite high hopes from congressional Democrats that special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony would clarify the conclusions of the Mueller report for the American public, new polls show the hearings changed few minds about the report’s contents and that a partisan split remains on questions of impeachment and presidential wrongdoing.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that Mueller’s testimony did little to change voters’ minds on the issue of impeaching Trump. In response to the question, “Did Robert Mueller’s testimony make you more or less likely to support the impeachment of Donald Trump?” 47 percent of Americans said hearing from Mueller made no difference. 

Although 48 percent of Democrats polled said they were more likely to support impeachment following Mueller’s testimony, just 3 percent of Republicans said the same.

The testimony seemed to convince Republicans that grounds for impeachment do not exist; 42 percent of Republicans said Mueller’s words caused them to be less likely to support impeachment than they were ahead of the testimony. Only 8 percent of Democrats shared this view.

A majority of Republicans — 54 percent — said the hearings didn’t change their views on impeachment at all, however, as did 44 percent of Democrats.

A similar partisan split was found on the issue of foreign election interference. Mueller made it clear during his testimony that Russian interference in elections is a given, saying, “They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it in the next campaign.”

Overall, voters appeared to take that warning seriously: 54 percent said they do not have any confidence in the capability of the US to defend itself against another electoral attack. But, Republicans and Democrats seem to see US election security very differently; 25 percent of Democrats expressed confidence in US electoral integrity versus the 77 percent of Republicans who felt the country is prepared to combat interference attempts.

Donald Trump has made it clear he sees Mueller’s report as clearing him of any and all wrongdoing; the phrase “no collusion, no obstruction” has become a mantra for the president and his supporters. The report did not absolve Trump, however. On the issue of obstruction Mueller wrote: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” He did not so state.

Democrats hoped to make this clear during the testimony, but a new Morning Consult poll suggests they may not have been successful in doing so. That poll found 35 percent of voters believed the special counsel had exonerated the president while 41 percent believed the opposite. 

Those numbers broke down starkly along partisan lines, as well, with 58 percent of Republicans believing Mueller exonerated Trump in contrast to the 62 percent of Democrats who believed Trump was not exonerated. 

Little new information emerged from the hearing, and perhaps because of that, Americans’ initial impressions of the report seem to have stuck.

The Morning Consult poll found the majority of voters, 49 percent, first learned about the Mueller Report from Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the report in March. In delivering that summary in a live press conference, Barr said the report proved there had been “no collusion” between Trump and Russia while arguing Trump had not committed obstruction.

The polls suggest that for some, and certainly for many Republicans, “no collusion, no obstruction” isn’t just a talking point, but a reality.  

Congressional Democrats appear to be just as split on impeachment as the voting public

Following Mueller’s testimony, 100 out of 235 House Democrats said they support impeachment, but party leadership, including Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler and House speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been reluctant to formally begin pursuing impeachment. Instead, they have advocated for continuing to investigate the president.

Part of this ambivalence, according to Vox’s Andrew Prokop, is a question of political strategy:

This hair-splitting shows the fundamental dilemma House Democrats are facing on the topic.

On one side, the party’s base is demanding impeachment, and many Democrats are desperate to show they’re doing something to stand up to Trump. Some members of Congress may fervently believe it’s the right thing to do, while others may fear primary challenges from the left.

But party leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi remain firmly opposed to an impeachment push. Calculating that there’s zero chance the Senate will remove Trump from office, they fear a controversial impeachment vote would harm Democrats representing districts that voted for Trump — something that could put the House majority at risk.

Given the general public ambivalence about impeachment suggested by the polls, it’s not clear that, politically at least, Democrats would benefit from beginning that process on the whole. To bridge the gap between members of the base that want impeachment and others who aren’t sure it is necessary, many Democratic lawmakers have been calling their ongoing investigations into Trump an impeachment inquiry of sorts, according to Prokop:

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) mused that, well, maybe there already is an inquiry. “A lot of people believe we’ve been in an impeachment inquiry ever since we started looking into high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. His point was that there was no official rule for how an impeachment inquiry begins. But his own preferred word choice, he said, is that “we are in an impeachment investigation.”

Aside from the politics of impeachment, voters do still have questions about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. The Morning Consult poll found Democrats may be wise to continue their investigations into the president: Across party lines, 43 percent of registered voters said Russia helped the Trump campaign in 2016, a number up four percentage points since the pollsters asked the same question in February.

And a growing number of voters, 49 percent, also said they believe that Trump tried to obstruct Mueller’s investigation. That number was up five points over the same time period.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to sweep major cities on Sunday in a series of raids as part of an effort to detain 2,000 immigrants who have been issued final orders of removal.

The raids were originally scheduled for June at President Donald Trump’s request; however, the president postponed them shortly before they were set to begin to give Congress time to craft immigration reform legislation. Trump threatened to move forward with the raids if the legislative branch failed to make progress within two weeks.

That deadline has now passed, and ICE officials announced last week that the agency would raid cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and San Francisco beginning Sunday. Because of Tropical Storm Barry, the raids on New Orleans and Houston will reportedly be postponed.

The original raids were scheduled to being in the early morning; however, Sunday’s planned raids seemingly got off to a quiet start, with immigration advocates saying that many targeted communities had seen little movement from authorities.

“I can’t help but feel like we are waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Adonia Simpson, director of family defense for the nonprofit Americans for Immigrant Justice, told the Miami Herald. “Given the anxiety I have been feeling, I can only imagine the fear our immigrant communities feel this morning.”

Ahead of the raids, local governments and pro-immigrant groups created advisories to inform immigrants of their rights when dealing with ICE. 

What we know

• ICE agents began operations in Harlem and Brooklyn Saturday evening. The ICE officials were reportedly turned away by residents because they did not have warrants.
• Agents were reportedly seen in Immokalee, a Florida community 35 miles east of Fort Myers, Friday evening knocking on doors in an immigrant community.
• Acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli refused to tell CNN’s Jake Tapper if the raids have officially started: “I can’t speak to operation specifics and won’t.”

• Cuccinelli also said the raids would prioritize the deportation of people Tapper referred to as “dangerous criminals”; however, the acting director said those criminals “will not be the exclusive limit of any operation.”
• Finally, Cuccinelli declined to say whether ICE will make efforts to ensure parents are not separated from their children during raids.
• ICE facilities and offices in cities like Chicago and Baltimore reportedly showed no signs of activity as of early Sunday morning. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told MSNBC her city was on alert, but that as of 9 am EST, “We’ve not heard anything.”
• Activists in Chicago and in Miami said they had not encountered or heard about any elevated ICE activity as of Sunday afternoon. No reports of extraordinary ICE presences had emerged from other cities by Sunday afternoon either.

Tropical Storm Barry, which the National Weather Service said has brought 75 mph winds to the Gulf Coast, was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane Saturday morning as it made landfall in Louisiana. By Saturday afternoon, it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. (To be considered a hurricane, a storm’s winds must reach at least 74 mph.)

A tropical storm warning remains in effect for the western section of the Louisiana coast. 

“On the forecast track, the center of Barry will move through southern Louisiana today, into central Louisiana tonight, and into northern Louisiana on Sunday,” the NWS said in a public advisory.

Forecasters expected a two-foot storm surge (when high winds force water ashore above normal tide levels), heavy rains, and strong winds to affect the Gulf Coast and warned residents to stay inside.

“Eighty-three percent of fatalities from these systems have been from inland rain,” National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said Saturday. “So let’s stay off the roads. Let’s prevent these preventable fatalities.”

The heavy rain is more dangerous than usual because Louisiana has suffered intense flooding over the past week due to other storms. A number of streets in New Orleans were already at dangerous water levels ahead of the hurricane, and some feared Barry could swell the Mississippi River so much that it would top the city’s levees (which vary in height from 20 to 25 feet).

Those fears have been allayed somewhat; the Mississippi River rose to 17.1 feet after a storm surge Friday and forecasters now expect its levels to decrease and the levees to hold. 

Other rivers, however, are also of concern.

The Comite River in Baton Rouge, for instance, is forecasted to rise to well over 30 feet Saturday, which would break the record of its previous flooding three years ago. At that time, the flooding killed 13 people and damaged 140,000 homes, resulting in at least $10 billion in property damage, according to meteorologist Bill Karins. 

What we know

• Barry was upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane Saturday morning.
• It was downgraded to a tropical storm Saturday afternoon (storms must have winds of at least 74 mph to be hurricanes).
• Airlines cancelled flights into and out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Normal operations resumed Sunday.
• Power began to go down ahead of Barry’s landfall. More than 100,000 Louisianians are currently without power. Louisiana parishes with power can be tracked using this tool.
• The first major rescue was successfully executed early Saturday morning when the Coast Guard rescued multiple people on Isle de Jean Charles, 45 miles south of New Orleans.
• A levee in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans overflowed Saturday but officials said these are not the levees that protect the Mississippi River. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told CNN “the water is coming over the levee pretty good,” but said the levee can hold up to several hours of overflow. Should the overtopping last more than a few hours, however, major flooding would become likely.

• National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said Saturday afternoon levees along the Mississippi River are expected to hold; Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards confirmed the river won’t rise beyond 17.1 feet, well below the height of its levees.
• Coastal communities in Mississippi and Alabama are seeing heavy rains despite their distance from Barry’s center; some are under flash flood warnings. Saturday afternoon, Mobile, Alabama, saw rainfall of two to three inches per hour.
• According to the National Hurricane Center, Barry’s winds continue to slow; as of Sunday morning, maximum sustained wind speeds were measured at 40 mph. The storm is moving north slowly at six mph.
• Water overflowing a levee in Terrebonne Parish, a coastal community southwest of New Orleans, has led to an evacuation order there — the Terrebonne sheriff stressed “the levee has not broke,” but all residents have been ordered to leave before conditions worsen.

• Three hundred oil rigs and platforms off the shore of Louisiana have also been evacuated.
• New Orleans is now expected to be spared major rainfall; initial forecasts projected the city would see up to 20 inches. Forecasters now believe the city will not see more than four inches before Sunday evening.
• Other cities are expected to see more rain, however. Lafayette, Louisiana, which is about 140 miles west of New Orleans, is expected to face continuing heavy rains throughout Sunday and has been placed under a flash flood warning. Western Mississippi is expected to see up to eight inches of rain through Monday, and is also under a flash flooding warning.
• Experts and politicians have warned residents to stay alert; the storm is slow-moving and will continue to release rain, increasing flooding risks throughout the affected area. Saturday evening, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said, “This storm still has a long way to go before it leaves the state. The worst is yet to come.”
• NASA scientists also warned Sunday morning that heavy rainmaking sections of Barry remain in the Gulf of Mexico but are making their way ashore.
• At least three Louisiana levees had been overtopped as of Sunday morning; however, all have held.
• President Trump called Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards Saturday night and promised federal aid for the state; the president also told the governor he is “pulling for” Louisiana.
• Tornado warnings were in effect Sunday afternoon for multiple areas in Mississippi and Louisiana, including the Baton Rogue metro area and Pike County, Mississippi.
• The National Weather Service has advised southeast Texas to be on guard for flooding Sunday night and Monday morning.
• Flooding is expected to affect the Mississippi River Valley through next week. Beyond Louisiana and Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee could be affected.

What we don’t know

• How rainfall will affect rivers other than the Mississippi River.
• The extent of the damage.
• If there were any casualties.
• When power will completely return.

President Donald Trump attacked liberal female Congress members in a nativist tweet thread Sunday, telling them to “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.”

Although the president did not tweet at any congresswomen in particular, he was likely referring to a group of progressive first-term members that includes Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all of whom are US citizens. Omar was born in Somalia and became a naturalized citizen as a teenager. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx (neighboring Trump’s birthplace in Queens), Tlaib hails from Detroit, and Pressley was born in Chicago. 

Omar, Tlaib, and Pressley recently spoke at the progressive Netroots Nation conference, alongside Rep. Deb Haaland. There, they strongly criticized Trump and his policies and shared their visions for the country.

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump wrote, adding he would like the Congress members to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

The tweet prompted swift condemnation from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Trump wrote “would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements.” The speaker chastised progressive caucus members last week for openly criticizing Democratic leadership, but quickly came to their defense in response to Trump’s attack.

“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again. Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power,” Pelosi wrote. 

Pelosi added that although she rejected the president’s “xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation,” she still hoped to work with him on “humane immigration policy that reflects American values.”

Pelosi was joined by a wide variety of Democratic voices in her condemnation of Trump’s tweet. Assistant House Speaker Rep. Ben Ray Luján, for instance, called Trump’s missive “a racist tweet from a racist president.”

Democratic presidential candidates made their disgust clear as well; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the tweet a revival of classic nativist tropes hurled at people of color in the United States.

“Unfortunately, there’s an American tradition of telling people to go back where they came from,” de Blasio said on CNN. “It’s a very bad tradition that we need to weed out of our nation because we are a nation of immigrants; that’s who we are for hundreds of years.”

Seth Moulton, another Democratic contender and current Congress member from Massachusetts, said Trump’s comments were “white nationalism.”

“The president thinks if you’re not white, you’re not American,” he said. 

“Characterizing members of Congress as being from another country is part of the problem,” business leader and candidate Andrew Yang tweeted. “We need to come together and stop putting up false barriers between different groups of people.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted, “When I call the president a racist, this is what I’m talking about.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren added, “Let’s be clear about what this vile comment is: A racist and xenophobic attack on Democratic congresswomen. This is their country, regardless of whether or not Trump realizes it.”

A number of Trump’s likely targets responded to him directly.

Tlaib, who has vocally advocated for impeaching Trump, wrote, “Want a response to a lawless and complete failure of a president? He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis. He needs to be impeached.”

Ocasio-Cortez issued a multi-tweet response, reminding Trump that she and her colleagues are all from the United States and accusing him of lashing out at her and her colleagues because “you cannot accept that we don’t fear you.”

“Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ and the country we all swear to, is the United States,” she wrote. “You can’t accept that we will call your bluff & offer a positive vision for this country. And that’s what makes you seethe.”

Omar echoed her sentiments.

“Mr. President, as members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States,” Omar tweeted. “Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen.” 

The four progressive House members have become targets for Trump

Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, and Pressley came into office following the 2018 midterm elections. Their outspoken liberal platforms have drawn conservative criticism from the start, but in addition to attacking policies the Congress members promote, such as Medicare-for-all, Trump has gone after them — particularly Omar — along racial and religious lines.

In one instance in April, Trump tweeted an edited video of a speech given by Omar that was intercut with footage of 9/11 in an attempt to link her to the attacks. Omar (like Tlaib) is a practicing Muslim. 

In the speech, which was uploaded to YouTube in early April, Omar stressed the importance of organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and praised them for helping to protect Muslims from civil rights violations.

“Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen, and frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it,” Omar said. “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.” (CAIR was actually founded in 1994.)

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explained, Omar’s words “some people did something” were quickly seized upon by members of the right “to paint [Omar] as an anti-American radical indifferent to those killed during the 9/11 attacks,” and the edited video Trump tweeted works to make the case Omar was minimizing the attacks in her speech.

The president’s tweet led to intense attacks against Omar that prompted defenses from Democratic leadership. Adding to their concern was the fact that Trump had attacked Omar in a speech about a week before sending the tweet shortly after a threat was made on her life.

The 9/11 tweet reportedly led to further death threats against Omar, and after hearing news of these threats, Trump appeared to back down. But only before doubling down on his racist criticism.

“Look, she’s been very disrespectful to this country,” Trump said in late April. “She’s been very disrespectful, frankly, to Israel. She is somebody that doesn’t really understand life, real life. What it’s all about. It’s unfortunate. She’s got a way about her that’s very, very bad, I think, for our country. I think she’s extremely unpatriotic and extremely disrespectful to our country.” 

Trump has used racial and cultural attacks to energize his base. The tactic also helped him raise his national profile ahead of his White House run — he was a frequent guest on conservative television ahead of his presidential bid, often discussing the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not actually born in the US.

In some of those appearances, Trump would also claim that Obama hid his birth certificate because of what it said about his religion. In 2011, he told Bill O’Reilly: “Maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that.”

As Vox’s Aaron Rupar has written, Trump has continued to use this sort of rhetoric as president:

Trump has a long history of blatant Islamophobia, and Omar — a Somali refugee who recently became the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor — makes a convenient target for him. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported on Monday that heading into the 2020 campaign, “Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position.”

“Mr. Trump has privately said his language about Muslims has been received well among his base,” the Times adds. “His advisers and friends acknowledge that, in effect, he is trying to recreate some of the same conditions of the 2016 campaign.”

Having found success using racist language to excite segments of the voting public before, Trump is unlikely to abandon his attacks on Congress members like Omar. And as the 2020 campaign ramps up, he may continue to launch similar broadsides.

Protesters around the country rallied against planned ICE raids this weekend as mayors renewed pledges to block ICE access to local law enforcement resources. The agency plans to sweep 10 cities on Sunday in an effort to detain 2,000 immigrants who have been issued final orders of removal.

The raids were originally scheduled for June at President Donald Trump’s request; however, the president postponed them shortly before they were set to begin to give Congress time to craft immigration reform legislation. Trump threatened to move forward with the raids if the legislative branch failed to make progress within two weeks.

That deadline has now passed, and ICE officials announced last week that the agency would raid cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and San Francisco beginning Sunday. Because of Tropical Storm Barry, the raids on New Orleans and Houston will reportedly be postponed.

The Trump administration has maintained that the raids are necessary to enforce immigration law; after first announcing the operation, Trump tweeted the raids would target people who “have run from the law and run from the courts.”

Saturday, however, protesters in cities across the US argued the raids are a tool the Trump administration hopes to use to intimidate immigrant communities and target families with children who are themselves US citizens. 

“It’s purely psychological,” Robert Suro, a public policy professor at USC, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is yet one more example of how the Trump administration is trying to use fear as an instrument of immigration control. It generates a lot of fear and anxiety but not a lot of control. This has nothing to do with actual enforcement.”

Suro said there are currently 1 million undocumented migrants with deportation orders, which means the 2,000 targeted by ICE amount to just 0.2 percent of those who face deportation.

Trump initially hoped to target more undocumented immigrants; in his initial announcement, he promised “ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.”

Logistical and operational constraints as well as the recommendations of senior officials like acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan (who reportedly told the president a more limited operation targeting 150 families would be wiser) led to a reduced scope. Also complicating matters was the refusal of many local governments to cooperate with ICE agents. Ahead of Sunday’s raids, many mayors have once again instructed their police departments not to aid ICE agents operating in their cities.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said, “If you want to come after them, you’re going to have to come through us.”

In Denver, Mayor Michael Hancock said not only had he directed his officers to refrain from assisting ICE, but that he has tasked social service employees with watching over any children left without parents because of the raid.

“We’re not going to put children in cages or leave them in inhumane conditions,” Hancock said. “Our job is to help those families as best as we can.”

Mayor Keisha Bottoms of Atlanta said, “Our officers don’t enforce immigration borders. We’ve closed our city detention centers to ICE because we don’t want to be complicit in family separation.” Other mayors, including Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot and New York’s Bill de Blasio, have made similar statements.

Citizens of cities affected by the raids also publicly protested the raids. In Denver, around 2,000 protesters gathered for a rally outside a nearby ICE facility on Friday.

“We feel every person has the right to dignity,” protester Jason Hayman told the Denver Post. “We also feel that immigrants are not being given the dignity that they deserve, like everyone else.”

Protesters in Chicago were joined by Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, who told the crowd, “It’s about damn time we tell this racist president loud and clear: Stop criminalizing desperation.”

Similar protests were also seen in other affected cities, like Los Angeles and New York, not directly targeted by ICE. In Phoenix, protesters blocked streets and chanted, “Free those kids!” while marchers in Philadelphia shouted, “Shut down ICE!” as they took to the streets Friday. 

ICE facilities in places such as Greenfield, Massachusetts, also saw protesters gather outside. 

Despite these protests and local governments’ refusal to coordinate with ICE, the raids are expected to proceed as planned. Although Trump canceled the original operation hours before it was set to begin, acting head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli suggested on Wednesday that would be unlikely to happen again — he told reporters the raids were “absolutely going to happen.”

Vice President Mike Pence visited an overcrowded, unsanitary migrant detention center on Friday as part of a tour meant to highlight the Trump administration’s handling of an influx of immigrants and asylum seekers crossing the US-Mexico border.

At a McAllen, Texas, facility housing nearly 400 Central American men, reporters noted an overwhelming foul odor and extreme heat. Men packed in cages worked to get the reporters’ attention, telling members of the press they did not have access to showers or toothbrushes; some of the detained said they’d been at the center for more than 40 days, and others claimed to be underfed and hungry.

Although the men had Mylar blankets, the cages lacked cots or bedding; immigration officials said there was not room for all of the detainees and beds. The detained people instead had to sleep on the concrete floor.

Pence called the conditions “tough stuff,” but said, “I was not surprised by what I saw. I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.” 

Michael Banks, the CBP officer in charge of the facility, disputed the narratives shared by the detained migrants. He told reporters all detained people were allowed to shower, but admitted a trailer shower had just been brought onto the premises Thursday, and said some of the men at the facility had not yet had a chance to use it. Because of the lack of shower facilities, Banks estimated some of the men had been forced to go 10 to 20 days without showers. He also said the facility is air-conditioned and is cleaned three times a day; pool reporter Joshua Dawsey of the Washington Post described the holding area as “sweltering hot” and as having a “stench [that] was horrendous.”

Banks further pushed back again the detained people’s claims of being hungry; he told reporters all immigrants and asylum seekers at the facility received three hot, catered meals from local restaurants each day, and that they were also given snacks and juice throughout the day. The vice president and reporters were not at the center at a mealtime, however, and did not get to witness this.

Speaking with CNN after his tour of the facility, Pence blamed Congress for the situation there, arguing that the poor conditions exist because the legislative branch has not given the executive branch enough funding to provide migrants with more hygienic conditions.

“The time for Congress to act to end the flow of families that are coming north from Central America to our border is now,” Pence said.

The White House has long blamed Congress for poor conditions at detention centers. In a June interview with CNN, Pence told the network’s Jake Tapper that Congress was at fault for insufficient bed space, and that same month, President Donald Trump told NBC, “If the Democrats would change the asylum laws and the loopholes, which they refuse to do because they think it’s good politics, everything would be solved immediately. But they refuse to do it.”

Congress has passed a bill allotting $4.5 billion in supplemental humanitarian border aid, and Pence said Friday the crowded conditions reporters witnessed are why that money was needed. He also argued that larger reforms are necessary, and said the White House is ready to do what it takes to make reform a reality: “The president and I are ready to roll our sleeves up and work with men and women in both political parties in the Congress to bring about the changes that will bring an end to this crisis.”

The McAllen detention center was the second Pence visited on Friday; earlier in the day, he stopped at a two-month-old Donna, Texas, detention center that houses families.

That facility was not at full capacity; it held around 800 people and was reportedly markedly cleaner than the McAllen facility. Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, spoke through translators to children held in a room where they watched Spanish-language cartoons.

Several children nodded “yes” when the vice president asked them if they had enough food and if they were being taken care of; others, however, shook their heads “no” when Pence asked if they had a “place to get cleaned up,” according to reports. 

The children wore winter jackets and hats indoors because of the air conditioning in the center.

“God bless you,” Pence said. “Gracias.”

At a roundtable discussion following his tour, Pence congratulated CBP officials on their conduct toward migrants: “It’s my honor to be with you all and to have the opportunity to see firsthand the extraordinary and compassionate professionalism of Customs and Border Protection.”

He later praised this facility on Twitter and called CNN “so dishonest” for reporting on the squalid conditions at the second center.

The Trump administration is facing growing criticism over conditions at detention facilities

Following a visit to detention centers in Texas, Congressional Democrats — including Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing about what they had witnessed at the facilities, and attacked the Trump administration as they did so.

Ocasio-Cortez said the conditions at the border were not the fault of Customs and Border Protection, but of the Trump administration’s cruel policies.

“It is a policy of dehumanization implemented by this executive administration laid at the feet of [Trump administration senior policy adviser] Stephen Miller that creates a tinderbox of violence and dehumanization where hurt people hurt people,” she said.

And Tlaib called the current border strategy one that was “intentionally and cruelly created by the Trump administration dead-set on sending a hate-filled message that those seeking refuge are not welcome in America.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly attacked the Trump administration’s immigration policies as overly harsh, saying, “There is no need for us to overcrowd and to detain and under-resource,” and arguing “the cruelty is manufactured.”

Speaking to reporters following his tour, Pence pushed back against this claim, saying Trump had sent him to Texas in full view of cameras in order to show that the border crisis is not “manufactured” and to push that Congress needs to act.

“The crisis is real,” he said. “This is not a manufactured crisis.”

Recently, the administration has faced criticism not just from political rivals but from external parties who are less concerned about whether the problems at the border are manufactured or not, and more worried about the US upholding international law.

Michele Bachelet, UN high commissioner for human rights, condemned US treatment of migrants in early July and said detention should be a last resort, as Vox’s Catherine Kim reported:

“In most of these cases, the migrants and refugees have embarked on perilous journeys with their children in search of protection and dignity and away from violence and hunger,” Bachelet said in a statement. “When they finally believe they have arrived in safety, they may find themselves separated from their loved ones and locked in undignified conditions. This should never happen anywhere.”

Bachelet especially criticized the US for detaining children, which “may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law.” Detaining children could have serious impacts on their development, which is why it should never be practiced, she said. 

“As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” she wrote.

Bachelet’s findings cited the Department of Homeland Security’s own Inspector General report detailing the poor conditions at the detention centers. That report found “dangerous” conditions at detention facilities that it said “represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those detained.”

Progressive lawmakers like Ocasio-Cortez worked to include accountability measures as part of the $4.5 billion humanitarian border funds package Congress passed in early July; these measures would have outlined guidelines for care and health standards at detention centers. However, the push to add the measures was defeated, and the funding bill was passed without them.