Jeff Manning/Staff

Members of Oregon's congressional delegation (from left) Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, Sen. Ron Wyden, Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Earl Blumenauerwere visibly upset after a visit an ICE detention facility in Sheridan, Oregon.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, joined four other Democratic members of Congress at a remote tent city in West Texas that is holding immigrant teens.

They say that 2,700 immigrant teens are being held there at a cost of roughly $1 million per day.

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Just arrived at the child prison tent city at #Tornillo. We’ll be inspecting inside soon. pic.twitter.com/CcUpydqvPE — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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Dave Killen/staff

Asylum seekers detained at the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, speak from the ACLU office in Portland on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018, about their experiences in prison.

Merkley, who made headlines earlier this year trying to get into federal centers where immigrant children were held. He ignited an international controversy by shining a light on the administration's family separation policies. He showed up unannounced at several internment camps in South Texas trailed by a video crew. Merkley did gain entry into at least one camp, where he claimed he saw children locked in cages.

Now he has returned to call attention to what he calls the Trump administration's "government-sponsored child abuse" at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Joel Martinez/The Monitor

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, from right, from Oregon, speaks to the media in front of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector's Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, in June.

An untold number of other migrant children who attempted to cross with their parents also have been locked up with their parents, Merkley said.

At Tornillo, they are held in structures meant to house people after hurricanes and natural disasters, according to the person who operates the tent city.

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HHS' Administration for Children and Families via AP, File

The shelter used to house unaccompanied foreign children in Tornillo, Texas, will remain open through the end of the year.

Merkley toured a camp in Dilley, Texas, on Friday where he met Patricia, a Honduran woman who’s been incarcerated with her 15-year-old daughter. The teen is not eating or sleeping due to depression, she reportedly told Merkley.

“The administration is trying to send a message,” Merkley said, “you come here, and we’ll put you through trauma, we’ll put your children through pain.”

On Saturday, he toured a tent city in Tornillo with U.S. Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tina Smith of Minnesota, and California Rep. Judy Chu.

Some suspect his trips to the border are a signal he plans to run for president in 2020, but he said Friday he has not decided.

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I just left the tent city at Tornillo. It is a child prison camp. They refused our request to speak with the children who are held there. — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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The vast majority of these children have parents or other family members who are ready to sponsor them in the US, but the Trump Administration has deliberately created a bottleneck so that it’s difficult for the children to be released. — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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They’re also threatening to hand over any undocumented family members to ICE, discouraging sponsors from coming forward. — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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They’re also threatening to hand over any undocumented family members to ICE, discouraging sponsors from coming forward. — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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So thousands of children are living in a tent prison. In the desert. For months on end. — Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 15, 2018

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-- Jeff Manning, The Associated Press and Molly Harbarger