EL PASO, Texas -- At the international bridge in El Paso is where rhetoric meets reality.
“We’re not discouraging anyone from entering – you just cannot at this time,” said a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Officer to a group of Mexicans hoping to enter the United States.
This country is turning away asylum seekers, including a family of eight on Monday from the state of Michoacana in Mexico because detention centers are currently full.
Forty miles east of El Paso, in Tornillo, Texas, 98-undocumented children - some separated from their parents - are currently staying at a temporary camp.
The facility can house three times as many.
There’s an increase in children detained after President Trump began enforcing zero tolerance and charging adults for entering the United States illegally which results in jail and their children getting taken away.
"Parents who entered illegally are by definition criminals. Illegal entry is a crime as determined by Congress, by entering our country illegally often in dangerous circumstances, illegal immigrants have put their children at risk,” said Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security
Opposition continues to grow against the president’s policy even as his spokeswoman defends it.
“The president said he doesn’t like this process. but once again, it's Congress' job to change the law,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at The White House on Monday.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, defended the president’s policy last week, but now said he will introduce emergency legislation to keep migrant families together, double the number of federal immigration judges and create new temporary shelters to keep parents with children.