Texas Gov. Abbott reports COVID outbreak, no 'usable running water' at migrant holding facility
Republican tells 'America's Newsroom' second facility also experiencing COVID outbreak
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined "America Reports" Friday with an exclusive update on conditions at two facilities where migrants are being held after crossing the U.S-Mexico border.
ABBOTT: We've known this is a crisis. What I learned in just the past hour shows that we are now dealing with a humanitarian disaster.
I need to talk to you about two of the three locations where migrants are being held in Texas ... in addition to the Dallas location, there's the location in Carrizo Springs, which is in south Texas, as well as in Midland.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}What we learned in Midland, just in the past hour, [are] two things. One is they have no proven clean running water at the location. They were using well water that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has informed the federal government has not been proven to be safe. There's no telling what could be in there, including the possibility of arsenic. So the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is evaluating the water, the running water. So there is no viable, usable running water at the location in Midland.
And then on top of that, more than 10% of the migrants at the Midland location have now tested positive for COVID-19. In addition to that, you mentioned the Carrizo Springs location. We also learned, within the past hour, that more than 10% of the population at that location has tested positive for COVID-19 ... Any time we're dealing with the massive amount of influx of people coming across the border, that would be a humanitarian crisis and a big challenge now, knowing the magnitude of the spread of COVID in these areas. This is occurring during the course of a pandemic and is endangering lives as we speak.