Fox News and ABC News contributor Laura Ingraham dismissed the humanitarian crisis that is prompting thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America to illegally cross into the United States, saying that the surge is “an invasion facilitated by our own government.” Ingraham stated that “it's not our responsibility” to help these children and criticized the use of military facilities to house them.

As The Wall Street Journal reported, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that this fiscal year, it will care for 60,000 unaccompanied children, many under the age of 13, who will attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States after fleeing violence in Central America:

Most of the children who HHS cares for are attempting to cross through the Rio Grande Valley and coming from Central America, driven by the dire economic conditions and sustained violence at home, experts say. HHS then keeps the children, typically for 30 to 45 days, until officials can place them with a parent or sponsor, often inside the U.S. The children are then put into deportation proceedings; some are deported but others ultimately are able to stay.

Mexican minors who are apprehended when crossing illegally into the U.S. are almost always repatriated and not referred to HHS for custody and care.

The Journal noted that the Defense Department “has made available facilities at military bases in San Antonio, and Ventura County, Calif., where HHS contractors feed, provide medical care and offer some education for the children.”

The Associated Press added: “More than 90 percent of those sheltered by the government are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, many driven north by pervasive violence and poverty in their home countries.”

Discussing the story on her radio show, Ingraham accused the Obama administration of “becoming human traffickers,” claiming that the administration is “trafficking illegal immigrants from one part of the country to another part of the country to further erode American wages and further forward their goal of ultimate amnesty and changing the electoral and cultural landscape of the United States forever.”

She continued: “It's not our responsibility. And to use our military facilities to house and feed and clothe and give medical attention to people who are law breakers as our own military can't get the proper attention required -- military being left out in the cold as far as their own medical treatment.”

Later in the show, she blasted congressional Republicans and Democrats who support immigration reform, including Rep. Eric Cantor and Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio, for allowing the children into the country. She stated:

INGRAHAM: Make no mistake about it, my friends, this current influx of tens of thousands of new people crossing this border is only being done because of the enticement by Eric Cantor, [Rep. Luis] Gutierrez, Obama, Rubio, McCain, [Sen. Lindsey] Graham, [Sen. Robert] Menendez, [Sen. Charles] Schumer, and the list goes on and on.

She went on to call the crisis “an invasion facilitated by our own government.”

In fact, contrary to Ingraham's claim that these children are coming into the United States to take advantage of pending immigration reform policies, the Journal reported that according to Cecilia Muñoz, White House domestic policy director, “children crossing now wouldn't benefit from either pending legislation or from an Obama policy that helps people brought to the U.S. as children because both have cutoff dates that have passed.”

Indeed, only young undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States since June 2007 are eligible to apply for the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Similarly, the immigration reform bill passed by the Senate in June 2013 is only applicable to undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since December 2011.

The Los Angeles Times further reported that an unaccompanied child “is placed in removal proceedings and has to appear before an immigration judge to make the case to stay. The child is not entitled to representation.”

Ingraham has repeatedly used inflammatory and derogatory language to attack undocumented immigrants and any effort to enact immigration reform. In April, ABC News host George Stephanopoulos announced that the network had hired Ingraham as its newest contributor.