Last week, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida) divulged that U.S. Border Patrol agents sent her photos of pallets loaded with infant formula that are stocked for border-crossing illegal immigrants, including mothers with children, who are apprehended by the federal agency.
Numerous news outlets, including American Family News, have reported mothers are scrambling to find baby formula on bare store shelves, and it appears whistleblowers pointed out the disparity they are witnessing.
The current shortage is tied to Michigan-based Abbott Laboratories, which was forced to cease production in mid-February when the FDA and CDC investigated the facility after the deaths of two infants were tied to a bacteria found there in the past.
The company’s Michigan facility produces approximately 43% of Similac brand formula, as well as brands Alimentum and EleCare, and now mothers are searching of formula 12 weeks after the Michigan facility announced a voluntary recall then ceased production.
Enter the Florida lawmaker, who told Fox News she was called a liar last week by outraged Democrats and by liberal news outlets. So she visited the border to confirm what agents had told her.
“Lo and behold, not only was there stocked warehouses,” she told Fox, “but there were multiple stocked warehouses that have been not only filled with baby formula, diapers, wipes and clothing, but they have been doing this for months and there's more en route.”
According to a Washington Examiner story about the pallets of formula, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is required by a 1987 class-action lawsuit to provide humane conditions to non-citizens who are obtained after illegally crossing into the U.S. The baby formula stocked at the Border Patrol holding facility is shipped there by contract and is not being purchased off store shelves for illegal immigrants, the story pointed out.
Yet the Florida lawmaker pointedly used her visit to the U.S. border to show a side-by-side comparison of formula at the Ursula Processing Center compared to a store in Florida. "This is what America looks like," she wrote in a Twitter post.
Meanwhile, Abbott announced last week it is waiting for the FDA to approve the Michigan facility to restart production as early as this week, but the first products are six to eight weeks from reaching store shelves.
Reacting to the controversy, Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies says the disparity is an example of the Biden administration’s priorities.
“The baby formula,” he tells AFN, “is just the latest example and one that touches the most vulnerable Americans."
In an attempt to find some middle ground, pro-life activist Lila Rose tweeted that the baby of an illegal immigrant is "just as precious" as the baby of a U.S. citizen, and both babies deserve formula. The blame falls to President Biden, she wrote.
"We are the wealthiest nation in the world," she wrote. "We shouldn't have shortages of infant formula. This is outrageous."
