President Donald Trump remains intent on beefing up the United States’ presence across its southern border — with people, it turns out, who have no problem with “joking” with each other about assault, deaths, and more in a secret Facebook group that ProPublica exposed. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responded to the revelation this week by slamming Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) as maintaining a “violent culture.” She’s one of the targets in the group, with hatred ranging from a suggestion to hurl items at her during a planned visit to the border to edited imagery placing her in derogatory sexual situations.
She commented in response:
‘This isn’t about “a few bad eggs.” This is a violent culture. 9,500 CBP officers sharing memes about dead migrants and discussing violence and sexual misconduct towards members of Congress. How on earth can CBP’s culture be trusted to care for refugees humanely?’
9,500 CBP officers sharing memes about dead migrants and discussing violence and sexual misconduct towards members of Congress.
How on earth can CBP’s culture be trusted to care for refugees humanely?
PS I have no plans to change my itinerary & will visit the CBP station today.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2019
Although there’s no immediate verification as to the precise number of actual CBP officers in the group, it was maintained as secret and billed as for current and former officers, so the number is likely a large portion if not most of its nearly 10,000 members. In other words, the New York Congresswoman’s assessment is spot-on. Monday, she was set to visit one of the flashpoints of the controversy over the Trump administration’s treatment of detained migrants, asserting during her commentary about the Facebook group that she would not be changing her plans to visit the El Paso detention center with local Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar and other Congressional Democrats. After that visit successfully took place, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that “there is abuse in these facilities” and even when the administration was on its “best behavior” thanks to the previously planned visit from members of Congress, they still had detained women use a toilet as a water source if they were in need.
Other visits from other interests have revealed similar atrocities. In one high-profile incident when lawyers paid a McAllen, Texas, facility a surprise visit, they ended up having to pressure authorities to hospitalize not one but four sick toddlers, including at least one who was unresponsive. The Trump team has occasionally blamed Democrats for the issues because of their hesitation to pour more money into their immigration projects, but no amount of money is keeping border patrol from acting with basic human decency.
Check out Twitter’s response…
Featured Image via screenshot
