JEENAH MOON/Reuters
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at an April press conference in Queens, New York.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused US Customs and Border Patrol agents of forcing detained migrant women to drink water out of toilets at a Texas facility.
- Ocasio-Cortez accused CBP of "systemic cruelty w/ a dehumanizing culture that treats [detained migrants] like animals" after visiting multiple migrant detention centers with other lawmakers.
- "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," she tweeted.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused US Customs and Border Patrol agents of forcing migrant women to drink water out of toilets at a Texas border detention facility.
The New York Democrat accused CBP of "systemic cruelty w/ a dehumanizing culture that treats [detained migrants] like animals" after touring detention facilities in South Texas with fellow members of the House Hispanic Caucus on Monday.
"Now I've seen the inside of these facilities. It's not just the kids. It's everyone," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress. I brought it up to their superiors. They said 'officers are under stress & act out sometimes.' No accountability."
The congresswoman said that female migrants told her of horrible conditions and treatment by officers in the facility.
"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," she wrote. "Tell me what about that is due to a 'lack of funding?'"
And during brief comments outside one facility, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters the cells women were being held in don't have running water.
"They put them in a room with no running water and these women were being told by CBP officers to drink out of the toilet," she said. "And that was them knowing a congressional visit was coming - this is CBP on their best behavior."
Ocasio-Cortez is scheduled to visit another facility in Clint, Texas, which has become the subject of heavy scrutiny after lawyers reported that migrant children were being deprived of proper sanitation, including soap, and subjected to other cruel treatment.
Physician Dolly Lucio Sevier said the conditions at the Clinton detention center, which she recently visited, "could be compared to torture facilities."
"That is, extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food," Sevier wrote in a recent court declaration.
A federal judge in California ordered the government on Saturday to send an independent monitor to Clint to ensure conditions are improved.
Ocasio-Cortez sparked debate last month when she called the US's migrant detention facilities "concentration camps." Some took issue with Ocasio-Cortez's implicit comparison of the detention centers and World World II-era death camps.
Here's @AOC outside the CBP station in Hondo Pass. She says the women detained inside are being forced to drink out of toilets. pic.twitter.com/0XerZe2AmB
- Jonathan M. Katz✍🏻 (@KatzOnEarth) July 1, 2019