U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito returned from a recent visit to the United States-Mexico border, and said President Joe Biden must change policy and do something to stop the surge of immigrants crossing that border.

Capito said three weeks ago she toured an immigrant holding facility near El Paso, Texas, and saw a large and growing number of immigrants at the border who were receiving basic human care.

She is concerned their numbers and closeness are spreading COVID, and that drug cartels are involved with trafficking them to the border.

After becoming president, Biden reversed the policies of former President Donald Trump and lifted restrictions on immigration to America. This has resulted in a surge of immigrants now crossing the border.

“I think the president has to come up with a solution,” Capito said. “Congress certainly needs to act on a more comprehensive immigration form, but this is of his own doing — the numbers. There have been surges in the past, but nothing like this.”

Capito serves as ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee that authorized funding for the immigration camps.

“I am really concerned about what is happening at the border,” Capito said. “I went to El Paso three weeks ago, and saw overcrowding with the children.

“This month, they announced 172,000 (are being detained at the border). There are 10,000 children in custody, and they are in overcrowded conditions. I am very concerned about that.”

Though they were close together and lying on pads on the floor, she said those at holding facilities did appear to have basic human care and necessities.

“A lot of them are exhausted when they come,” she said. “They have been through a terrible journey. I didn’t see anything that made me think they were being mistreated.

“I think they have medical screening, nutrition, clean clothes. But it is a sad situation. Try to imagine your own child in that situation. It is pretty hard.”

Capito said she was most concerned about the physical closeness of the detainees, and that there was no social distancing between them.

“We’re seeing COVID spreading,” she said. “They don’t test them until they leave the processing center and go to HHS (Health and Human Services). I think they are testing between 10-20 percent positive, so it’s higher (than for the rest of the population.)”

She is also concerned about what is happening to the migrants as they come from their home countries in Central America into the United States.

“These are drug smuggling people now into the drug trafficking business,” Capito said.

She supports allowing prospective immigrants to apply for asylum in America from their home countries.

“President Trump was criticized (for the policy), but it stopped or certainly slowed the flow in a dramatic way,” she said. “That’s what you need is a deterrent, and President Biden has basically said we won’t turn anyone down for 100 days — we’re not going to turn any children away — and we’ll see what that does. There are no deterrents for them anymore.

“They are not even processing them anymore. They are just sending them into the country because they are over capacity,” she said.