Sen. Lindsey Graham, after visiting detention facilities in Texas with Vice President Mike Pence said if it's up to him, men housed in "rough conditions" will remain in their cells even longer.
"We'll not let them go," the South Carolina Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"They will stay in those cells for 400 days if it is up to me. I won't let the guys go."
Graham also said he plans a resolution to honor the service of Border Patrol agents to the United States, and he dares anyone to vote against it.
"Fifty-two thousand people were released this year," Graham said. "We don't have enough space to hold them. Children are being well taken care of. I saw 700 adult males caught coming here legally, who have been here before illegally, housed in rough conditions because we don't have bed spaces because Democrats won't give us the money."
He said the current law is putting children at risk because there are migrants who know if they bring a child along with them from Central America, "the law is, if you get here with a child, you claim to be a family unit, we let everybody go, 20 days. They will come forever until we change that law."
Meanwhile, "90% of this would stop overnight if you require people to apply for asylum in their home country or Mexico,' said Graham. "If you had more time than 20 days to process a claim with a minor child. 920% of it goes away. The pressure on the border stops."
He added that people have been captured "from 60 countries" trying to come across the border, including migrants from "Syria, Iran, all over the Mid-East. It would be so easy for (a) terrorist to go to Central America...get in here, kill a bunch of us."