Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has come out of her recent tour at a border patrol detention facility in Texas with a series of new allegations on the treatment of illegal immigrants. Agents have now responded to her claims.
The freshman congresswoman made the allegations in a social media post on July 1 after visiting a facility in El Paso, where she said, “Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets.”
“This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress,” she added.
During the visit, Ocasio-Cortez posted various claims about what she had seen and heard inside the facility.
“Now I’ve seen the inside of these facilities. It’s not just the kids. It’s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress,” she said. “I brought it up to their superiors. They said ‘officers are under stress & act out sometimes.’ No accountability.”
In another post, she said she had forced herself into a cell holding women and began talking to them.
“[O]ne of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as “psychological warfare”—waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them [expletive], etc,” she wrote. “Tell me what about that is due to a ‘lack of funding?’”
Responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusations, multiple CBP officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, who spoke to Mail Online and Washington Examiner have denied the congresswoman’s claims.
Mail Online’s political editor David Martosko, who reported on the story, posted a photo of the sink attached to the toilet from a facility in Tuscon.
“I haven’t seen photo of the Clint, TX facilities that @AOC described today, but it would be interesting if ”drinking from the toilet“ meant drinking from an attached sink marked ”potable water“ -- like this image from a CBP holding facility in Tuscon (filed in federal court),” he wrote, while asking for confirmation.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Martosko’s post, confirming that it was indeed the same type of toilet sink but claimed that they weren’t functioning at the facility she visited earlier.
“So this is what happened with the migrant and drinking water from toilet: she wanted water, didn’t know how to use the faucet in the cell, and drank from the toilet. She never told AOC that we made her drink from the toilet. AOC, of course, changed it … This was when she [the migrant] was apprehended and brought into the facility,” the agent told the news outlet.
Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli also reported, while citing anonymous witnesses, that Ocasio-Cortez had allegedly yelled at border agents “in a threatening manner” during the visit at the El Paso facility. The report also said Ocasio-Cortez refused to tour the facility with the other Democratic lawmakers and instead opted to sit with a family inside the facility.
“She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning [of the tour] … Crying and screaming and yelling,” said one witness said, reported the news outlet.
“The agents, they wanted to respond, but they held back because she’s a congressional delegate. But when you have someone yelling at you in a threatening manner … ” the same witness said. “They were like, ‘Hey, you need to kinda step back.’”
Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo replied to Giaritelli’s post, saying that her sources have also confirmed the account.
Meanwhile, another reporter Jonathan M. Katz provided his own account of the tour, denying Washington Examiner’s claims.
Ocasio-Cortez seemingly responded to the Washington Examiner report in a Twitter post on July 2. She said: “And to these CBP officers saying they felt “threatened” by me - They were literally discussing making a GoFundMe for an officer who attacked my [sic] on my tour. They confiscated my phone, and they were all armed. I’m 5’4”. They’re just upset I exposed their inhumane behavior.”
This comes after a report by ProPublica surfaced about a secret Facebook group where around 9,500 members, some allegedly current and former CBP employees, were reportedly sharing derogatory comments and vulgar images about illegal immigrants and congressional lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost said in the statement, “These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out. Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.”
Ocasio-Cortez also responded to the report, accusing the agency of “violent culture.”
“This isn’t about “a few bad eggs.” This is a violent culture,” she wrote on July 1.
