Texas Senator Ted Cruz speaks in Houston, Texas, November 3, 2018. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Senator Ted Cruz on Monday sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for the creation of a process that would allow DHS to accept donations meant for migrants in U.S. custody.

Currently, no such process for collecting a distributing privately donated aid exists, which has caused generous citizens who have offered supplies to overcrowded migrant-detention facilities to be turned away.


Curz called on Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan to “establish and publicize a process for accepting donations from charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, and NGOs to aid individuals in CBP custody.”

DHS facilities are at “peak or beyond peak capacity,” Cruz said, because of the “crisis on our southern border.” Even with the $4.6 billion in emergency humanitarian aid approved by Congress to address the influx of migrants at the border, the Department can surely accept the “generosity of the American people” as well, he said.

A Texas state lawmaker first drew attention to the donation issue when he revealed that he’d tried to donate items to a Texas detention facility and was told by a Border Patrol representative, “We don’t accept donations.”

“It just befuddles me and I think it’s just heartbreaking to know that there’s so many people that want to help, and that help is being denied for no definable reasons that anybody’s been able to communicate,” Democratic state representative Terry Canales said.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.