Vice President Mike Pence would apparently like Americans to believe that a migrant detention facility where the “stench was overwhelming” and many detainees said they hadn’t had access to a shower in 10 to 20 days and were instead packed behind chain link fences with nothing but concrete floors as provisions is perfectly fine and dandy. Following a visit he took to border facilities this past week with members of the press, he complained on Twitter that they were covering the issues that the trip uncovered rather than focusing on supposedly “excellent care being provided to families and children.” Perhaps the excellent care is why more than half a dozen migrant children have died in less than a year after no deaths for years on end.
VP saw 384 men sleeping inside fences, on concrete w/no pillows or mats. They said they hadn’t showered in weeks, wanted toothbrushes, food. Stench was overwhelming. CBP said they were fed regularly, could brush daily & recently got access to shower (many hadn’t for 10-20 days.) pic.twitter.com/tHFZYxJF7C
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) July 12, 2019
Pence — who apparently has little better to do than watch CNN — tweeted late Friday:
‘CNN is so dishonest. Today we took reporters to a detention facility on the border for families and children and all told us they were being treated well. The crisis at our southern border is not a “manufactured crisis”, it is real and is overwhelming our system. To show this, we also visited an overcrowded facility for adult men, many of whom have been arrested multiple times… Rather than broadcast the full story, showing the compassionate care the American people are providing to vulnerable families, tonight CNN only played video of men in the temporary facility and didn’t play any footage of the family facility at all… Our great
@CBP agents deserve better and the American people deserve the whole story from CNN!’
Oh is “greatness” the reason that seemingly thousands of border patrol agents were discovered as part of a secret Facebook group in which racist, sexist, and overall violent imagery about migrants and even members of Congress was regularly shared? Even border patrol head Carla Provost was in the group — the head!
Pence would like us to take the vague descriptor that many of those in the “temporary” facility — who just to be clear, had been there for weeks on end — had been “arrested multiple times” so supposedly “deserved” their treatment, or something. That excuse isn’t going to cut it, however, and neither is the one Pence also offered of Democrats supposedly being at fault for hesitating to pour more resources into this system. Just recently, they approved billions of dollars in funding! No amount of money can make up for a lack of humanity leading to the abuse at the “temporary” facility and elsewhere perpetrated against women and children, no matter what photo op Pence staged.
Check out Twitter’s response.
Featured Image via screenshot