Bill Nelson: “I have just returned from South Florida where I went to a detention facility in Homestead, FL. There are 1,000 children…”

“I have just returned from South Florida where I went to a detention facility in Homestead, FL. There are 1,000 children in this detention facility, and 94 of 1,000 are children who have been separated from their families. Despite being the senior Senator of Florida, despite having oversight responsibility of the Department of HHS, despite the fact that in that oversight capacity, we have the funding responsibility for the Department of HHS and one of its components, the Office of Refugee Resettlement--these children separated from their families are handled by that office--despite all of that, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of HHS refused to allow me to enter this facility and said that it was the Department's policy that you have to fill out a form, which we had done, but you have to wait 2 weeks before being allowed to enter the facility. The question is, Why do they not want the Senator from Florida to get into this detention facility where there are children who have been separated from their parents? It must be that not only is this Department policy, but this is being directed by the President in the White House. They don't want me to see it because they don't want us to know what is going on in there. I have subsequently found out that in addition to those 94 children, there are 174 children being held in my State of Florida who have been separated from their families.…”