Texas migrant facility 'pod' at nearly 9x capacity seen in shocking video posted by Sen. Lankford

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Drug smugglers, cartel members taunted GOP senators at border: Mike Lee

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, discusses his midnight trip to the banks of the Rio Grande with Ted Cruz.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., posted a shocking video of a "pod" at a Texas migrant facility along the southern border that is holding nearly nine times as many people as it was designed to hold.

Lankford toured the migrant holding facilities on Friday along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other GOP senators.

The Oklahoma senator shared a video on Twitter from a tour of a migrant holding center along the southern border that illustrated the startling scene: a pod designed to hold 80 people filled to the brim with over 700 migrants.

"Day two from the border — this is a pod that’s designed to hold 80 people that’s currently holding 709," wrote Lankford.

GOP SENATORS ENCOUNTER TRAFFICKERS, CARTEL MEMBERS AT BORDER DURING NIGHTTIME RIO GRANDE TOUR

The video showed people shoulder to shoulder, sitting and sleeping on floors while wrapped in aluminum blankets. The migrants were held behind clear walls, with some not wearing masks.

Lankford posted a follow-up tweet showing a side-by-side comparison of how the facility is supposed to look in operation and what it looked on Friday.

"For a side-by-side comparison, the first photo is from my trip to the border in 2019 -- the second is from today," wrote Lankford. "Plenty of space to walk around and safely spread out."

"Tell me this isn’t a crisis," he added.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who was on the trip as well, posted in a Twitter thread that Border Patrol is "overwhelmed, overworked, [and] discouraged by new policies."

"Agents took us through a dangerous path to the Rio Grande where we could hear the Cartel members taunting us across the river," she wrote. "Human trafficking, child abuse, [and] drug smuggling are rampant."

"This is a crisis," Collins added.

Lankford’s footage came as the Biden administration continues to bungle the border crisis.

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Texas GOP Reps. Van Taylor and August Pfluger each toured teen migrant holding facilities in their respective jurisdictions and later shared their experiences in interviews with Fox News.

Taylor said that the migrants being held in the Dallas Convention Center are sleeping "head to foot" in the facility. Pfluger told Fox News that approximately one in 10 of the migrants in the Midland facility had tested positive for COVID-19.

"They have a mixture of single and double rooms here. Over 300 kids, about 10% positive with COVID," said Pfluger. "Approximately 10 to 11%."