The $4.6 billion humanitarian aid bill that recently passed is just a short-term fix, Rep. Will Hurd warned Wednesday, as it only covers the needs for the rest of the calendar year.
"I tried to put an additional $2.9 billion to help with the unaccompanied minor problem," the Texas Republican told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted that down. I also tried to get an additional 100 judicial teams that are involved in these immigration cases."
There is currently a backlog of 900,000 people in the nation's immigration courts, and it taking them an average of 627 days to get to immigration cases, said Herd.
"We should be able to do an immigration case in under nine months," said Hurd. He added that human smugglers are getting better at moving people to the border.
"They're taking these folks' money," said Hurd. "We're not doing enough to attack the infrastructure and demolish the infrastructure of those carriers."
Meanwhile, Hurd said the report from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general that said it was feared riots would happen over conditions at border detention centers was expected.
"There were similar reports when this really started in 2014," he said. "The conditions in these facilities were worse than they are now."
The Border Patrol has been saying the facilities were not built to handle the numbers of immigrants they are getting, said Hurd.
"I've inspected many of these facilities, and you shouldn't hold anybody there for any length of time, let alone children," said Hurd. "ICE, and HHS, they need additional resources and they need additional facilities."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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