By Alexandra Hutzler
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Senator Jeff Merkley put Donald Trump on blast following a recent visit to a Texas detention center for migrant children, calling the president's immigration policies a "war on children."
"What I saw when I went to the military-style Tornillo child prison camp at the border was horrific," the Democratic lawmaker wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "That's why I'm introducing a bill to shut down #Tornillo. We need to end @realDonaldTrump's war on children."
The tweet linked to a Medium blog post written by Merkley, in which he and Democratic Representative Judy Chu condemn the Trump administration for keeping migrant children in detention centers rather than transferring them into homes and schools.
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Just this past week the White House signed off on plans to ease up on the burdensome security requirements for sponsors of migrant children, meaning that it will now be easier to release children being held in camps into the care of a family member.
"It was absolutely chilling to see children locked up in a desolate, isolated tent prison in the desert," Merkley wrote. "Our taxpayer dollars are being used to traumatize children by keeping them in a child prison camp instead of in the arms of their families. This is evil."
Representative Chu added that instead of allowing unaccompanied migrant children to be released into the care of a relative, Trump is "fomenting xenophobia and keeping them in the desert in the hands of people not trained to care for children."
The two lawmakers have introduced legislation titled "Shut Down Child Prison Camps Act" to close down the Tornillo center and a similar detention camp located in Florida.
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The Tornillo detention center is the largest of all the child detention facilities, with nearly 2,800 migrant teens being held in massive tents. The detention center has been operating for more than six months, though the Trump administration labels it a "temporary" shelter.
According to a recent report by Associated Press, the staff members at the center are not allowed to touch the children, except for fist-bumps. No hugging is allowed.
Republican Representative William Hurd, whose district includes Tornillo, Texas, has also called for the center to be closed down.
"Unnecessarily holding children for prolonged periods of time is no deterrent to illegal immigration," Hurd told the Associated Press. "All of this is a symptom of a broader problem, and that is that we're not doing enough to address root causes of migration. We are the United States. We are better than this."
The Department of Health and Human Services declined *Newsweek'*s request for comment.
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