After visiting immigration and border patrol facilities on Monday, members of Congress—including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joaquin Castro, and Ayanna Pressley—described their observations as "horrifying" and "appalling." Through many tweets, the politicians shared that they had seen unsafe and unsanitary conditions, among them women who claimed they had been called whores by agents and who were drinking from toilets because they didn't have running water.
The lawmakers went to the detention centers following reports of children suffering at centers in Clint, Texas. According to the New York Times, children as young as seven and eight were often taking care of infants they had met while detained. Reportedly, they had little to no access to toothbrushes, soap, diapers, or adequate food. Many of them were sick and wearing soiled clothes at border stations described as dangerously overcrowded.
The detention of child migrants has been a byproduct of the Trump administration's immigration policies, which have included a zero-tolerance policy that separated families at the border. While Trump passed an executive order ending the policy, countless children remain separated from their parents at facilities across the country.
When Ocasio-Cortez traveled to Texas, she wrote on Twitter that what she witnessed was similar to what had already been reported.
"Now I’ve seen the inside of these facilities," she tweeted. "It’s not just the kids. It’s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members of Congress. I brought it up to their superiors. They said, 'Officers are under stress & act out sometimes.' No accountability."
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"After I forced myself into a cell w/ women&began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as “psychological warfare”—waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc. Tell me what about that is due to a 'lack of funding?'" she added later.
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On the same day that the politicians made their visits, ProPublica published an expose of a 9,500-person Facebook group for border patrol agents. Screenshots show members of the group joking about migrants dying, with some even making fun of Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria Martinez, whose bodies were found floating near the Rio Grande. The messages also included attacks on female members of Congress and a photoshopped image of Ocasio-Cortez performing a sex act
"I can see see why CBP officers were being so physically &sexually threatening towards me," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. "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."
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Representative Joe Kennedy, who was also in Texas, explained that his big takeaways were that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol was "very resistant to congressional oversight. They tried to restrict what we saw, take our phones, block photos and video. Atmosphere was contentious and uncooperative."
"Facilities are wholly inadequate. Cells maxed to capacity, concrete floors…. It felt jail-like. No way to keep a child or innocent human being. Group of 13 women from Cuba were in tears when we spoke with them," he said in a multipoint thread. "The entire system is broken, rotten and rife with abuse. And Trump doubles down on it despite the growing horror—child detention, metering, Remain in Mexico, threatened ICE raids. Every action he takes exacerbates and entrenches the humanitarian crisis at our nation's feet."
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Castro, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, did manage to take a few videos. Accompanying one clip he shot of several women sitting on the floor of a facility, he wrote, "This moment captures what it’s like for women in CBP custody to share a cramped cell—some held for 50 days—for them to be denied showers for up to 15 days and lifesaving medication. For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1."
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Conservatives were quick to deny some of what the politicians reported to have seen, but Ocasio-Cortez, in particular, stood by her remarks. When one person wondered if the women had been drinking from sinks attached to the toilets at the facilities, she explained that the faucets in the sinks had not been working when Pressley tested them.
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Pressley, meanwhile, made an impassioned speech for immigrant rights' supporters after touring the facilities. "We will never stop fighting for your dignity, your humanity, and the preservation of your families," she promised on Twitter.
