Sunday 19 June 2022 10:28 PM Republicans say Dems 'don't care about kids' for not joining them on border tour trends now Republicans on the House economic disparity subcommittee tore into their Democratic counterparts for traveling all the way to border town McAllen, Texas to talk about infrastructure without touring border operations. The House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth traveled to South Texas for the first field hearing at the southern border of this Congress. The full committee heard from locals who live in 'colonias,' unincorporated communities that still often don't have basic amenities like running water, paved roads or concrete foundations under their homes. DailyMail.com viewed the full committee hearing and participated a nighttime ride-along tour and a daytime boat tour of the Rio Grande with border agents and Republican members of the committee, but Democrats did not tour the facilities. 'We're here at the behest of the Democrats, they chose a select hearing in the field at the border, but they don't want to talk about the border. They want to talk about green energy and infrastructure,' Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., told DailyMail.com. During the field hearing, Democrats and Republicans took time to hear from local residents of colonias in Texas Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez's district who talked about flooding issues faced by South Texas, where due to insufficient drainage structure residents said their own homes would often take on water and the streets outside would be flooded for three days even with mild storms. The issues pose health hazards for local residents - one man said during a committee roundtable that his wife takes at least one of their three kids to the doctor for a sinus infection every week. Making the case for further infrastructure funding, community leaders said they would need $600 million to resolve drainage issues. Republicans on the House economic disparity subcommittee tore into their Democratic counterparts for traveling all the way to border town McAllen, Texas to talk about infrastructure without touring border operations A congressional delegation of the U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth toured the Rio Grande river The lawmakers were shown various landing points on the U.S. side where smugglers drop migrants after crossing the river Republicans were hesitant to sign on to funding beyond last year's $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. 'If we’re going to go through infrastructure funding again we have a redo to go through hard work to target red-level projects,' Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said. The State of Texas, meanwhile, has spent $2 billion of its own funds under Operation Lonestar on border security. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., argued that Texas could use that money for infrastructure if it did not have to use it for border protection. 'If the federal government was stepping up and securing the border, there'll be additional funds to address a lot of the needs we heard about they are real needs about internet connectivity, about flood control. we need to be far more thoughtful on how we're spending our money.' DailyMail.com participated a nighttime ride-along tour and a daytime boat tour of the Rio Grande with border agents and Republican members of the committee, but Democrats did not tour the facilities Border Patrol agents show a popular crossing spot, replete with discarded life jackets, rafts, clothes and water bottles Gov. Greg Abbott announced Lonestar last year, and the program has been criticized as wasteful for deploying the National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), where they don't have much authority because border protection falls to the federal government. Meanwhile, Republicans lambasted Democrats for focusing on infrastructure over border security after a record 239,000 apprehensions were made last month at the southern border. 'To our colleagues on the left, if you care about the kids the way that you claim that you care about the kids, and the suppose it kids in cages, you would be here,' Cammack said after a boat tour of the Rio Grande, where migrants cross in rafts from Mexico into the U.S. 'There are real people getting hurt.' Cammack did not mince words on her thoughts about Biden: 'That is why I cannot call Biden commander-in-chief, he's the trafficker-in-chief. He is doing the job for the cartels, and it has to stop.' One border agent told DailyMail.com that smugglers have gotten bolder, and he had recently started to see makeshift ferries where they float cars across the river. One border agent told DailyMail.com that smugglers have gotten bolder, and he had recently started to see makeshift ferries where they float cars across the river. Texas DPS provided DailyMail.com with a photo of the makeshift ferries for vehicles Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez said that his agency estimates smugglers are making $100 million per week leading migrants to the border, oftentimes robbing and raping them along the way. He said that the pricetag per person varied - those from Latin America could pay $3-4,000 to be led to the border. Chinese nationals sometimes brought in $30,000 to $40,000 per person. One 14-year-old girl, Amy, told DailyMail.com, border agents and GOP members of the House Economic Subcommittee as she was being detained by agents that her parents had sent her to travel for two months from El Salvador to get to the border. She spoke perfect English - she'd already spent five years in the U.S. until her family moved home due to 'visa problems.' Seemingly unfazed by her treacherous journey, Amy said she'd been traveling with her cousin but the pair got separated along the way. No worry to her - they'd be reunited at her aunt's house in Tennessee after they were processed, she said. Clutching her birth certificate, a phone and charger, Amy said she had not come along with a trafficker, but had found other migrants to walk with on the journey, showing up to agents in a group of about 12, mostly unaccompanied children and about 3 adults. 'Babies got lost along the way,' she said. Border Patrol agents encounter a group of 'runners' who tried to evade detection before they were caught by authorities A group of unaccompanied children are taken in by border authorities A young unaccompanied boy from Honduras waits on as border authorities survey the documents he was clutching Donalds tore into Biden after the tour for having never visited the border. 'I know he likes to go around the country and around the world saying that our border is secure. But that is a lie and everybody knows it. And the people that know it the best are the drug cartels.' '[Rep. Cammack] this is her fifth trip, this is my fourth trip. We're freshman we just got here. The president’s been in office longer than I've been alive he’s never been here. that speaks for itself.' Biden claimed in an October 2021 town hall that he had been to the southern border, but no such record exists. The Republicans argued that Biden needed to tighten up the asylum process, continue construction of the border wall and beef up funding to the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, hordes of migrants are camped out on the Mexican side of the border, either waiting for their shot to attempt a crossing, waiting for Title 42 to be lifted or waiting for their asylum claim to be processed through the 400,000 backlog of cases. The Biden administration had planned to lift Title 42, the Center for Disease Control's public health order that allowed for immediate expulsion, on May 23, but that decision was struck down in a court case the day before. Unaccompanied child migrants are allowed into the country. Families are often processed under Title 8 and allowed to claim asylum, where they are sometimes, released into the U.S. and told to go to their local jurisdiction for a court date, sometimes told to wait in Mexico. Pastor Joshua Muse, who founded and runs the Kaleo shelter for families in Reynosa, Mexico this year after seeing a dire need of migrants there, told DailyMail.com the biggest thing he wants from the U.S. and Mexican governments is clarity. 'I think the people are just waiting for some kind of a clear answer, one way or the other,' he said. 'That's the most important thing that I would encourage anyone on either the Mexican side or the American side, just to be clear with the messaging. I think that's what people need.' All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility