Monday some members of Congress were allowed into the El Paso detention center to see what the conditions are like for migrants after reports of unsanitary and cruel confinement for asylum seekers, many of whom are being detained separately from their children. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the visitors in an oversight trip arranged by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Unfortunately, only hours before her visit, she was featured in a bombshell story from ProPublica about a secret Facebook group with 9,500 U.S. Border Patrol members where some members shared vile, racist, and misogynist comments and memes, one of which was a sexist cartoon of AOC engaged in a sex act with a detained migrant.
As news of the ProPublica exposé went viral, the National Border Patrol Council, which represents Border Patrol employees, released a statement on the “I’m 10-15” Facebook group (“10-15” Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody”) and noted that not everyone in the group is a current employee of the Border Patrol. In their effort to do damage control, they essentially said the awful comments were from a few bad apples. And then they attributed statements to AOC that she did not, in fact, say, specifically that she called agents “Nazis.” Here’s the passage in question, the full press release can be seen below.
Similarly, when Rep. Ocasio-Cortez refers to CBP facilities as concentration camps and our agents as Nazis – when neither could be further from the truth – she does nothing to improve the political discourse; however as stated above, the discourse must be handled professionally.
AOC and others quickly responded because she never called the agents Nazis and called it “truly nuts” the Border Patrol was “pushing easily disprovable lies about members of Congress.”
AOC joined other members of Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, California Rep. Judy Chu, Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar and Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean. Several members said they were treated poorly and/or felt threatened by Customs and Border Patrol agents inside the facility, although it was the armed agents who would later claim they “felt threatened.” Ocasio-Cortez called them on that falsehood as well.
Making people drink out of toilets is inhumane. Taking people’s children and not even telling them where they’ve gone is inhumane. Some of these children will never be reunited with their parents and that is a shame we will all have to carry now.
It is not possible to read what was happening in that group and not be horrified that these Border Patrol employees were so freely sharing these things in a large group setting.
One member encouraged Border Patrol agents to hurl a “burrito at these bitches.” Another, apparently a patrol supervisor, wrote, “Fuck the hoes.” “There should be no photo ops for these scum buckets,” posted a third member.
Perhaps the most disturbing posts target Ocasio-Cortez. One includes a photo illustration of her engaged in oral sex at an immigrant detention center. Text accompanying the image reads, “Lucky Illegal Immigrant Glory Hole Special Starring AOC.”
Another is a photo illustration of a smiling President Donald Trump forcing Ocasio-Cortez’s head toward his crotch. The agent who posted the image commented: “That’s right bitches. The masses have spoken and today democracy won.”
Clearly, people need to be fired. It’s time to clean house at the Border Patrol. Specifically, people at the top need to be fired because what we saw revealed in that Facebook group is a lack of leadership more than anything else. The fact that people felt so free to express such things like mocking migrant deaths and vulgar comments about female members of Congress openly tells you something about the environment overall at the U.S. Border Patrol. As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head. When you lead with ethics and moral clarity, you demand the same from those who work for you and with you. That’s what AOC is doing. That’s what everyone in government should be doing, even at the Border Patrol.
US Border Patrol Union statement on 10-15 group by Jen Hayden on Scribd