Dem Rep. Wilson: Detention Centers Led by ‘White Men’ Who Use Facilities as ‘Money Making Scheme’

Representative Frederica Wilson (D-CA) on Wednesday discussed her recent visit to a migrant detention center, calling on CNN’s “New Day” for the center to be “shut down.”

According to Wilson, the center she visited is led by “white men,” who she claimed are using the center of children separated from their parents for “profit and greed” by processing children in but not out.

“Are you suggesting that they’re being separated and kept away from any sort of prying eyes because this is a money making scheme? I mean, what do you fear is happening there?” host Alisyn Camerota asked.

“Yes, that’s what I think it is. I think it’s a money making scheme,” Wilson replied. “Instead of them processing the children out, they’re processing children in so that they can use government money to expand this facility, which is already about the size of three football fields with thousands of children. And every day they’re bringing in new children from the border. So, there’s no real plan to exit these children out of this facility, but there’s a real plan to bring them there because they said to us we’re going to add permanent structures. Now they’re in tents. And it is so sad.”

She continued, “I said to one of the workers who’re all white men, no Hispanic men, no Hispanic women, everyone running this institution are white men. And I said to one of them, ‘I feel so sorry for these kids.’ He said, ‘We treat them well.’ I said, ‘I mean, I feel sorry for them because you have taken them from their parents.’ And he said, ‘Oh, because we treat them well.’ I said, ‘You think crowding them in a jail in beds that are one foot apart in a gymnasium full of just girls and right across the hall, right across the hall are the same age boys. That is very dangerous.’ And this place needs to be shut down. They’re making profit, greed.”

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