Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among congressional members visiting border detention facilities
CLINT, Texas (WABC) -- More than a dozen congressional members, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, visited detention centers at the border Monday.
The trip comes after reports of deplorable conditions at some facilities, and new reports about border patrol agents posting vile and threatening comments in a secret Facebook group.
The US Customs and Border Patrol confirms it is investigating a social media page group that may have had several thousand border agents.
The agency calls it disturbing and inappropriate, with officers reportedly ridiculing members of Congress and their ethnicity.
According to ProPublica, which first reported it, some border agents even posted memes of deceased immigrants who died at the border, and they make jokes about it.
The development came as 14 Democrats took a tour of federal border facilities, amid an uproar over conditions at those camps.
Senior Democrats on the tour of facilities in Clint, Texas were furious, not only about conditions, but about the secret Facebook group where border patrol agents reportedly posted graphic and sexually vulgar jokes about Democratic lawmakers.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, "9,500 CBP officers sharing memes of dead migrants and discussing violence and sexual misconduct toward members of Congress..how on Earth can CBP's culture be trusted to care for refugees humanely?"
Also, New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez said CBP agents on the Facebook page are in no way fit to serve and present a danger to vulnerable migrants and their own colleagues.
"What we saw today was unconscionable," said Ocasio-Cortez after the visit. "No child should ever be separated from their parents. No child should ever be taken from their family. No woman should ever be locked up in a pen when they have done no harm to another human being."
The Trump Administration has come under fire for how it has treated new immigrants seeking asylum. Holding facilities packed with young children are dirty, food is inadequate, diapers and toothbrushes aren't provided, and lights are kept on 24 hours a day.
Last week Congress approved a humanitarian bill to spend several billion dollars to fix horrible conditions at the border.
Also, President Trump this weekend vowed a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. He postponed it recently after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intervened.
But now Trump is vowing to restart those arrests and deportations once again.
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