Rubio: Congress can act to keep migrant families together

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) - U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has visited a Miami-area facility housing more than 1,000 teenage migrants.

After his tour Friday, the Florida Republican said he didn’t speak to any of the children inside the Homestead complex because of privacy regulations.

Officials say all the children are classified as unaccompanied minors, including fewer than 70 who were separated from adult relatives at the border.

He said splitting up families at the border was “a terrible situation” but the U.S. doesn’t have the money or the capacity to hold families together when they’re detained by immigration authorities.

Rubio said Congress would need to create those kinds of facilities. He added the desire to keep families together needed to be supported with policies that would help prevent people from making dangerous journeys to flee violence in their homelands.