Tlaib defends vote against funding for ‘broken’ border system

by Regina Zilbermints - 07/07/19 10:31 AM ET

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Sunday defended her decision to vote against a $4.5 billion border funding bill, saying she didn’t want to throw more money at a “broken system.”

“What our country is doing is creating a generation of children that will remember what our country did to them,” Tlaib said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And that, to me, I will not vote for something that is broken and deteriorated. It is inhumane.”

{mosads}Tlaib was one of the lawmakers who visited a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, that has been the subject of widespread anger over allegations the children there are being held without adequate food, water or sanitation.

She said on Sunday that rather than listen to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who appeared on the program before her and denied the accusations, she would listen to the Customs and Border Protection agents she met while touring the detention center.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib defends voting against $4.6 billion emergency border bill: “Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said, ‘more money is not going to fix this,” adding, “they all said this is a broken system.” https://t.co/hPwYH6mm4T pic.twitter.com/YIeDsRO0nu

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 7, 2019

“Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said more money is not going to fix this, that they were not trained to separate children,” she said. “That they don’t want to separate two year olds away from their mothers. That’s not what they were trained for, that’s not what they signed up for in their service to our country. They signed up to protect the border, not to separate children, not to put people in cages.”

Tags Rashida Tlaib Sunday shows