Handout / HSS
A Texas shelter housing child immigrants who have been separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border is reported to be overcrowded, highly structured, and has murals of President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama on the walls. The privately run Casa Padre shelter in Brownsville, formerly used as a Walmart, was opened up to a group of journalists Wednesday for the first time since the Department of Homeland Security announced a controversial new family-separation policy. According to MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff, who live-tweeted about his tour of the facility, visitors are almost immediately greeted by a massive Trump mural featuring a quote that reads, “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” Soboroff said on Twitter that similar presidential murals are “everywhere” throughout the shelter. Nearly 1,500 boys between the ages of 10 and 17 are held in the facility and reportedly get only two hours a day of fresh air. Despite Trump’s oft-repeated claims that his immigration crackdown is necessary to stop MS-13 gang members from getting into the country, officials at the shelter said they’d never encountered an MS-13 member, Soboroff reported. The San Antonio Express News reports the depictions of Obama and other presidents are accompanied by “inspiring quotes” about immigration; however, the Trump mural does not, a spokesman told the newspaper.