Say goodbye to the rule of law. Our lawmakers are out of control.
Witnesses said freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lost her cool on Monday while touring a Border Patrol facility in El Paso, Texas, screaming at federal law enforcement agents “in a threatening manner” and refusing to continue the fact-finding mission, the Washington Examiner reported.
After completing her visit to the El Paso Station on Hondo Pass Drive with 13 other House Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez blasted border officials for being “violent” and “inhumane” to detainees. She also claimed that facility staff were acting “physically & sexually threatening” towards her.
Witnesses tell a different story
However, a pair of witnesses working at the detention center dispute the congresswoman’s account, arguing that Ocasio-Cortez flew into a rage in front of about 40 people. One customs official claimed that Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly left the area where border agents were briefing lawmakers concerning the facility’s operations to visit with a migrant family being detained in a nearby holding cell. “She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning [of the tour] … Crying and screaming and yelling,” recalled another CBP agent.
“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 officer remembered. “They were like, ‘Hey, you need to kinda step back.’” Ocasio-Cortez refused to accompany her colleagues for the remainder of the tour and stayed with the immigrant family, the Examiner reported.
The New York legislator commented on the conditions at the facility later that day:
Just left the 1st CBP facility.
I see why CBP officers were being so physically &sexually threatening towards me.
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.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2019
Agents push back
The following day, current and former immigration officials pushed back on the congresswoman’s claims that detainees are forced to drink toilet water. Former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Tom Homan told Fox News that Ocasio-Cortez was “clearly, intentionally misinforming the American public.”
“They are not drinking out of the toilet—no Border Patrol agent is going to make anyone drink out of the toilet,” Homan said, adding, “It’s just ridiculous on its face.”
Homan suggested that Ocasio-Cortez was confused by the dual toilet-sink “apparatus” found inside the facility that is equipped with “two separate water lines—one going to the commode, one going to the sink.” But the congresswoman dismissed this explanation, insisting that the sink portion of the combination commode wasn’t working, “so the women were told they could drink out of the bowl.”
Homan acknowledged that the CBP facilities which Democrats visited “are jails” which “were not built for women and children.” However, he was quick to point out an important aspect of the immigration crisis that has largely been ignored by Democrats and the media: CBP agents have been “begging” Congress to increase the number of beds and expand facilities “so these families can be moved into a proper facility with proper care,” according to Homan.
Ignoring signs of trouble
Democrats ignored warning from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services that record numbers of South and Central American migrants were being encountered at the southern U.S. border. Despite these risks, Democrats refused to increase the number of beds available at ICE detention facilities, or approve humanitarian aid to care for migrant families.
“These radicalized criminal agencies are destroying families and killing children,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote in a joint statement with Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “It is absolutely unconscionable to even consider giving one more dollar to support this President’s deportation force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the American people.”
By refusing to fund more space in migrant housing facilities, Democrats understand that the government will have no choice but to release migrants into American towns and cities, hopeful that they will return to attend immigration hearings weeks or months later. Therefore, when Democrats such as Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) equate the conditions inside of these detention centers to “child abuse happening at the hands of the United States government,” they need only look to their own failed immigration policies to understand why the infrastructure has failed.
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez — who has openly lobbied for the government to disband federal law enforcement agencies like ICE — now considers herself a subject matter expert on CBP facilities. “She was there for three minutes and now she’s an expert on what this facility looks like?” asked former ICE director Ron Vitiello in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”
Despite the strain on resources, CBP chief of law enforcement operations Brian Hastings defended his agency. “We don’t treat people that way. We provide fresh water. We provide food. We provide sanitary items as well as items for bathing and personal hygiene,” he said Monday evening on Fox News’s “The Story.”
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