Dems flock to migrant detention center in post-debate protest

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — One day after they clashed on stage, six Democratic presidential hopefuls converged on a migrant detention center in South Florida to show a united front against President Donald Trump’s handling of border security.

Sens. Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Cabinet Secretary Julián Castro and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper all spoke to officials at the facility Friday, but they were denied entry to see 2,700 children who illegally crossed the southern border and are being held at the center, the candidates said after they returned to speak to activists and journalists.

“You see here a lot of people here who may have been competing for the last couple of days, but are absolutely on the same side and united when it comes to the way a country that believes itself the greatest in the world ought to handle the least among us,” Buttigieg said to the crowd, which included activists carrying red signs reading: “Shut it down.”

The Homestead facility, the largest detention center in the country, attracted more than a dozen presidential candidates over the course of the week, as Democrats clamor to paint a contrast with Trump’s immigration policy and show compassion in the face of a humanitarian crisis involving thousands of migrant children. Immigration has become an even stronger flashpoint for the Democratic candidates this week, in light of a gruesome viral picture of a father and daughter who drowned trying to cross into the United States.

Gillibrand castigated the Trump administration for having “no humanity,” while Harris railed against the “people who are literally profiting off the incarceration of children.”

Castro, who dominated an exchange on immigration with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke during Wednesday night’s debate, told POLITICO in a brief interview that “this is not who we should be as Americans — to keep children in, basically, a private prison and control access so much that people don’t really know what’s happening.”

“We need to close these facilities,” Castro continued.

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Earlier in the week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren arrived outside the facility on Monday night, while O’Rourke visited on Wednesday, citing his previous protests of a “tent city” in Tornillo, Texas, where migrant children were being held. The Homestead facility, a 45-minute drive from downtown Miami, has drawn specific scrutiny from lawyers and activists for its poor conditions.

“Part of the strength of our nation is supposed to be that we have strong arms, which will embrace and protect anyone fleeing or facing harm, but that’s not what we see from this administration,” Harris said. “This is an administration that beats people down, instead of lifting them up, and that’s why we need a new president of the United States.”

Five of the six presidential candidates who visited Friday morning stood on ladders outside the camp, giving them a view of children being held on the other side of the wall. Castro, visibly emotional, described the orange caps the children wore as the “color of prison uniforms.”

Buttigieg, though, didn’t go to the ladders. Angry protesters shouted at the mayor to “see the children,” waving signs outside his car window as Buttigieg’s staff rushed him into a black SUV. An hour later, Buttigieg appeared on “The View” on ABC.

He discussed the Homestead facility on the show: “I think people of both parties can agree that the greatest nation on earth should be able to get children into homes and not have them living in what amounts to a prison camp,” Buttigieg said.

Freshman Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.), who led the presidential candidate contingent to the facility, applauded the candidates for “showing all of us that they care about what happens in Miami, what happens in Homestead,” she said.

Marianne Williamson, an author who appeared on Thursday night’s debate stage, also visited the center on Friday morning, but she arrived after the five other candidates spoke with officials.