Pastor Who Volunteers at Migrant Center Sets the Record Straight After Democrats Sound Alarm
A pastor who volunteers at a detention center for children who have entered the country illegally is pushing back against a parade of Democratic presidential candidates who have claimed the center mistreats children.
“These were children being marched like soldiers, like prisoners from one place to another,” Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said last month after visiting the detention center in Homestead, Florida, WBFS reported.
“This is not what we should be doing as a country. These children did not commit a crime, these children pose no threat to people here in the United States of America and yet they are locked up,” she said, calling for the center to be closed.
Other Democrats, including presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris of California, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, author Marianne Williamson, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, have made similar comments when they visited the center.
Russell Black, pastor and president of Latin Impact Ministries, had a different story to tell when he appeared Friday on “Fox & Friends.”
Black noted that unlike politicians who were outside the center with cameras in tow, he has been inside the center with the children, Fox News reported.
So proud of our friend Russell Black and the beautiful ministry of Latin Impact in Homestead Florida. https://t.co/kcGUBZqA5J
— Wendy Davis (@DrDPT08) July 12, 2019
“It’s actually been overwhelmingly surprising how good the care is at the shelter,” Black said.
“We were surprised at the care, the expense, the concern of the staff and the management of the shelter in making sure the brief stay that the immigrants had in the shelter would be as painless and pleasant as possible,” he said.
“As I see the print media, the politicians make comments and allegations against the shelter, it blows me away that they don’t have the correct picture at all.”
Black said he needed to speak out to contradict opinions generated by “staged visits where tours are conducted.”
He said that he has been in the facility many times.
“[T]he care that they receive there is phenomenal, and I would hope that if any of my children ever had to experience what these children have had to experience, that they would have that same level of care as well,” Black said.
On Friday, Black and other pastors also took their case to the media, the Miami Herald reported.
“We are correcting the record,” Black said as he stood with two dozen clergy representatives who volunteer inside the center.
“At no time during our four years on this property have we heard of, seen, or experienced any degree of abuse, neglect or mistreatment of these children. To the contrary, we have seen a staff of employees, managers and volunteers providing the best care possible for these kids,” he said.
“This is almost like a summer camp,” Black said. “Please hear me, I’m not saying it’s a summer camp, but what I’m saying is that as much as possible, everything we’ve seen, what they’ve done with these kids, under the conditions and the limitations they have, they’ve made this the most pleasant experience these kids could have.”
Black said children have their basic needs met, and then some.
“When they come into the property, the first thing they go through is medical and emotional evaluations. They are grouped up with other kids to help them in the transition, given new clothing, given two pairs of shoes, given nice places to sleep, air-conditioned buildings to sleep in.”
“I see signs out here that say ‘free the children,’” Giselle Delgado, part of a ministry called Hope 4 Life, said. “They are not detained because they are being bad, they are detained because they are protecting them.”
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