In a nearly 10-minute tirade Thursday at a luncheon for Washington D.C.-based political reporters, Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry slammed the Obama administration for its failure to secure the border and warned of a magnified humanitarian crisis if a major hurricane hits the United States.

Prompted by a reporter’s question about the influx of children flowing over the southern border, Perry said the crisis represented a “failure of diplomacy” by the Obama administration and wondered what might happen if a major hurricane hit the U.S. while the country was still housing thousands of undocumented children.

“This unaccompanied alien children issue has the potential to be a absolute catastrophe — a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.

“We are just going into hurricane season,” he continued. “Were we to have a major event and literally do not have places to house our citizens because of this influx from Mexico — I am greatly concerned the catastrophe that could occur with those two events happening simultaneously.”