Biden official asked GOP senators to delete photos taken at border facilities

Update 4:08 pm EST: Video Ted Cruz posted of a staffer attempting to stop Cruz from taking pictures has been added to this article.

Republican Senator Mike Braun told Fox News that an official from the Biden administration had asked Republican senators to delete pictures taken while visiting a border facility on Friday. Braun had originally stated this claim to the Washington Examiner.

“There was one of Biden’s representatives. I felt sorry for the lady because she actually talked to me about deleting a picture, but by the time she got to me, all those other pictures were taken, and that shows you the hypocrisy,” said Braun to the Washington Examiner.

“None of us would have gone down there if we were going to be muzzled, said Braun. Border Patrol had asked the senators not to take photos, only because “they were telling us because they had to.”

Ted Cruz, who also visited with Braun, visited a facility that allegedly was at 700 percent capacity due to the border crisis.

Cruz also posted video on Twitter of a Biden administration staffer trying to stop him from taking pictures. The video was first shown on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.

While stopped at the edge of the Rio Grande, a bunch of “coyotes” yelled at the group of senators in Spanish. “Coyotes” are smugglers who smuggle illegal immigrants across the border for money.

 “All of a sudden to hear from the other side of the river taunting from the smugglers and coyotes, most of it in Spanish, telling the border guards that whatever you do, we’re coming,” said Braun to the Examiner. “That kind of hit home in such an anecdotal way because it is one story that kind of is a metaphor for what’s happening all up and down the border.”

After visiting the facility, Braun sent a letter, obtained first by Fox News, to President Biden asking him to visit the border.

“The crisis surrounding this surge makes it a moral imperative for you to see firsthand what is happening—and not the sanitized version of the border tour taken by some of my congressional colleagues,” wrote Braun. “Having personally gone this week, I can testify to this being an inhumane, unsustainable and dangerous situation.”

Children are not supposed to stay in processing facilities for more than 72 hours before being transferred to HHS shelters designed to take care of children, but the large influx of illegal immigrants has caused delays.

“I know why President Biden doesn’t want the media to be here, because we do have an open border,” said Republican Senator James Lankford.

“If you were an unaccompanied minor, you were sent over to the Donna facility, which we went over and visited. That facility is designed for 80 people in a pod, and they had 709 people… literally wall to wall in every one of the little plexiglass cells that they have, and people flooding out into the hallway,” continued Lankford.