DILLEY, Texas – Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson took a swipe at Congressional Republicans this week at the opening ceremony of a lavish new detention center for illegal immigrant women and children in Texas.

“If Congress is interested with me in supporting the border security measure we are outlining here today, it should act immediately on our budget request for Fiscal 2015,” Johnson said, WOAI News Radio reports.

“Everyone agrees that border security is important,” he said, directing his comments to Congress, according to the New York Times. “Now it’s time to step up and partner with this department to help support that.”

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Johnson is sore because Republicans in Congress passed a spending bill last weekend that only funds his department through February.

“ … (S)everal conservatives want to try attain to ‘defund’ President Obama’s executive actions on immigration reform,” WOAI reports.

“Republican leaders have vowed to halt the programs when their party takes control of Congress next month. More than 20 states, led by Republican officials in Texas, have sued to stop the federal government from issuing the deportation reprieves,” according to the Times.

The new detention facility, called the South Texas Family Residential Center, was constructed from a former barracks used by oil field workers in Dilley, Texas, about 100 miles north of the Rio Grande River. It currently consists of several dozen modular units. The little cabins come complete with a small kitchen, flat screen, couches and a bathroom with instructions on how to use it.

Each unit houses up to eight residents, and the entire facility is expected to hold as many as 2,400 immigrants. There’s a playground for the kids, and a school with computers and bilingual certified teachers who will hold classes for five hours per day, five days per week, the Times reports.

There’s a playground, children’s library, and all the supplies mothers could need – blankets diapers, clothes and toys. Guests will also have access to a law library, laundry mat, and cafeteria, according to media reports.

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Johnson said he believes the new facility will send a message to immigrants thinking about sneaking into America.

“I believe this is an effective deterrent,” he said. “It will now be more likely that you will be apprehended, it will now be more likely that you will be detained and sent back.”

The South Texas Family Residential Center will house about 480 women and children while a larger facility is constructed on a 50-acre site next door. The families who will live there, many of which are being transferred from a temporary Homeland Security holding facility in southeast New Mexico, will be free to do as they wish, though there’s a large fence around the compound.

The Center is run by the private prison company The Corrections Corporation of America at a cost of $296 per immigrant per day, which would equate to about $710,400 per day at full capacity.

The New York Times reports the number of families detained at the border is currently at a two-year low. At the Homeland Security holding facility in New Mexico, immigration lawyers report cramped conditions and limited access to immigrants, but the new facility comes with three formal courtrooms where judges will hear cases by videoconference, the Times reports.