Walmart blasts Trump administration's 'disturbing' detainment of migrant children in one of its former stores
- Walmart on Tuesday attacked the Trump administration's detainment of migrant children in one of its former stores.
- "We had no idea our former store would be used for such a disturbing purpose," Walmart tweeted. "We are just as shocked and disappointed as you are."
- The supercenter in Brownsville, Texas, closed in 2016.
- It's now housing nearly 1,500 migrant children who were were either separated from their parents at the border or arrived in the United States unaccompanied.
- The separations are part of the Trump administration's new "zero-tolerance" policy against illegal immigration.
Walmart on Tuesday attacked the Trump administration's detainment of migrant children in one of its former stores.
The company said on Twitter that it was "shocked and disappointed" that its former store in Brownsville, Texas, was being used to house children who had been separated from their parents at the Mexico border.
The separations are part of the Trump administration's new "zero-tolerance" policy against illegal immigration.
"We had no idea our former store would be used for such a disturbing purpose, A.L.," Walmart tweeted Tuesday in response to a woman who called for a boycott against the company. "We are just as shocked and disappointed as you are."
The tweet that prompted Walmart's response said: "@walmart THESE CHILDREN ARE HOUSED IN @walmart !! #Boycott!!"
The Brownsville store, a former supercenter that Walmart closed in 2016, is now known as Casa Padre. It houses nearly 1,500 migrant boys between the ages of 10 and 17, some of whom were separated from their parents at the Mexico border.
The facility is one of approximately 100 shelters the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is using to hold more than 11,000 refugee children in 17 states.