Oklahoma Representative Jim Bridenstine compares U.S. border facility access to ‘former Soviet Union’

Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine will finally be granted access Saturday to the Fort Sill facility where more than 1,000 children who crossed the border illegally are being held. But his access will likely be similar to that of the “former Soviet Union.”

“Interestingly they also had a media day on the 10th, and during that media day they sent out an e-mail in Oklahoma and I think across the nation and they said the media can come. It will be a 40-minute tour, but you can’t ask questions. You can’t talk to the staff. You can’t talk to the medical doctors. You can’t talk to the children. If you would like to take pictures, you can’t do that, but we’ll send pictures to you,” Bridenstine said in an appearance on CNN’s New Day Tuesday morning.

“This is the kind of media they had in the former Soviet Union,” he continued. “This is not the kind of unfettered access that we expect in the United States, especially if the president is going to ask us for $2 billion.”

Bridenstine (R-Okla.)  made headlines last week when he was denied access to the facility in his home state.

The congressman asked in a press release what the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to hide at the facility in Fort Sill, Okla. The gates around it are chained, and the facility is covered to obscure outside view, he wrote.

“There is no excuse for denying a Federal Representative from Oklahoma access to a federal facility in Oklahoma where unaccompanied children are being held,” he wrote in the release.

HHS told The Hill it conducts tours of its three similar facilities as much as possible and has given five tours to 55 elected officials so far. Officials must request the visits in advance.

The Fort Sill facility was one of three facilities set up last month to house the flood of unaccompanied minors crossing over the border. More than 52,000 children — primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — have illegally crossed the border since October.

The Obama administration has recently requested expanded authority and resources from Congress to deal with it, including nearly $2 billion for HHS.

Watch the video at Mediaite.