Trump touts border centers, says migrants living better

By Umar Farooq

WASHINGTON (AA) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday commended the conditions of border detention centers amid reports and images that reveal the squalid state that migrants in the U.S. are being held in.

Reports have surfaced over the past week of the conditions of these detention facilities, with images showing extreme overcrowding and detainees not having access to showers and having to sleep on concrete floors.

Investigators for the Department of Homeland Security visited border stations in the southwest, and documented serious red flags and health concerns.

In the report, a manager at one of the facilities called the situation a ticking time bomb.

"Many of these illegals [sic] aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions," Trump tweeted.

"If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!" he said in another tweet.

A few Democrat lawmakers also paid a visit to the border station at El Paso, where they said women had to drink out of toilet bowls and cells were filled with migrants at twice the rooms' capacities.

Earlier this week, an investigation by ProPublica revealed a Facebook group of 9,500 Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) workers, where agents made jokes about migrant deaths and made threats targeting Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

However, Trump has not only touted the conditions in the facilities, but he praised the efforts for CBP workers.

"Our Border Patrol people are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses," the president said.

"If you really want to fix the Crisis at the Southern Border, both humanitarian and otherwise, tell migrants not to come into our country unless they are willing to do so legally, and hopefully through a system based on Merit," he said.

Trump also took a jab at Democrats, saying that their “bad Immigration Laws” are the problem.