Politics
Lawmakers Condemn Border Facility Conditions & Agent Behaviors After Touring Several Centers
- A group of lawmakers toured several border facilities on Monday, where they found separated families, dirty and unsafe conditions, and some people who had been in the centers for more than 50 days.
- Several representatives reported that multiple women were packed in a cell with no running water, where Border Patrol agents allegedly told them to drink from the toilet if they wanted water.
- The same day, ProPublica released a report about a secret Facebook group for Border Patrol agents, where they posted vulgar pictures of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and joked about migrants dying and throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress.
Lawmakers Tour Border Facilities
Lawmakers are condemning the living conditions and treatment of migrants at Border Patrol facilities after touring several centers in Clint and El Paso, Texas on Monday.
The tours came after a facility in Clint faced widespread backlash over reports that said about 350 children were being held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
A group of lawyers who went to the facility and interviewed the children said that the children were hungry and many did not have access to showers, soap, or toothbrushes. Babies were said to have been left unattended or cared for by other children. There were also reported outbreaks of the flu and lice.
Some of those children, who under the law can only be held in these facilities for no more than 72 hours, had been there for three weeks.
The lawmakers who toured the facilities on Monday said that most of the children had been moved from the Clint facility. However, they were still horrified by the conditions at the El Paso facility, where they said several hundred people are still detained.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Responds
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one of the people who toured the facilities.
“There’s abuse in these facilities, there’s abuse,” she told reporters after going to the El Paso center. “This was them on their best behavior, and they put them in a room with no running water, and these women were being told by CPB officers to drink out of the toilet.”
Ocasio-Cortez also took to Twitter to describe what she saw, specifically noting how the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents behaved.
“Officers laughing in front of members Congress,” she wrote. “I brought it up to their superiors. They said ‘officers are under stress & act out sometimes.’ No accountability.”
In another tweet, Ocasio-Cortez said that she spoke to a woman in the center who “described their treatment at the hands of officers as ‘psychological warfare’ – waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc.”
After leaving El Paso, Ocasio-Cortez also told CNN, “In the last facility, I was not safe from the officers.” In a tweet, she said that the Border Patrol officers were being “physically &sexually threatening” towards her.
The Washington Examiner later reported that Ocasio-Cortez had screamed at Border Patrol agents. The Congresswoman’s communications office responded to the article in a statement to the Washington Post, calling it “inaccurate depiction of events.”
“The Congresswoman spoke sternly to a CBP agent that tried to take a stealth selfie with the Congresswoman in a mocking manner, despite the gravity of the situation,” the statement said.
Other Lawmakers Respond
Other lawmakers who toured the facilities also confirmed what Ocasio-Cortez said about detainees being told to drink from toilets.
However, Border Patrol officials denied those accusations, with Border Patrol Chief of Operations telling CNN, there are “ample supplies” and adding “a lot of our stations look like Costco.”
The lawmakers also spoke out about their experiences during the tour.
Representative Madeleine Dean described women being separated from their families, going weeks without showers, and sleeping on concrete floors, writing “This is a human rights crisis.”
Representative Joe Kennedy told reporters that the facility “feels like a jail, and they’re treating them like they’re in jail.” Kennedy also said in a tweet that the Border Patrol agents “tried to restrict what we saw, take our phones, block photos and video.”
“Atmosphere was contentious and uncooperative,” he added.
Despite the fact that their cellphones were taken away, Representative Joaquin Castro was able to sneak in a device. Later he tweeted out a video he took of several women detained in a cramped cell.
“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 life-saving medication,” Castro wrote. “For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1.”
After touring the facilities, the lawmakers held a news conference. The entire time they spoke, protestors yelled over them, forcing them to yell to be heard. Some protestors reportedly yelled racist and sexist slurs at a few of the congresswomen.
Representative Rashida Tlaib gave an emotional speech while protestors yelled, “We don’t want Sharia law here. We don’t care about Sharia law, we care about Jesus Christ.”
ProPublica Report
The visits to the Border Patrol facilities were made more contentious by a ProPublica report published right before the lawmakers toured the facilities, which detailed a Facebook group where Border Patrol agents reportedly joked about migrant deaths and posted sexist memes.
According to ProPublica, the group is called “I’m 10-15” which is the Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.” It was created in August of 2016 and consists of 9,500 current and former agents.
The report stated that members of the group “joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant.”
The picture in question had the caption, “Lucky Illegal Immigrant Glory Hole Special Starring AOC.” ProPublica also provided a screenshot of a doctored photo where Ocasio-Cortez is engaging in oral sex with Donald Trump.
Another screenshot from the group showed an article with a picture of Ocasio-Cortez and Representative Veronica Escobar with a comment, “Let’s start a go fund me for one CTX agent brave enough to throw a 10-15 burrito at one of these bitches.”
The report also said that agents joked about a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in CBP custody in May. In another post, one agent made fun of a viral picture of a father and daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande.
ProPublica stated that they were able to “link the participants in those online conversations to apparently legitimate Facebook profiles belonging to Border Patrol agents, including a supervisor based in El Paso, Texas, and an agent in Eagle Pass, Texas.”
Response to ProPublica Report
CBP quickly responded to the report in a statement and said that they had contacted the DHS Office of the Inspector General and initiated an investigation.
“These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out,” U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost was quoted as saying in the statement. “Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.”
The lawmakers who were touring the facilities also responded to the report.
“If they have these kind of derogatory feelings about us, you can only imagine what they’re thinking about these detainees,” Representative Judy Chu said in a video on Twitter. “There are the ones who are in charge of them. Well, there seriously has to be some changes.”
Representative Castro also spoke about the page during the press conference. “That was a vulgar, disgusting, and vile page,” he said. “That shows, unfortunately, that there are many within CBP who become desensitized to the point of being dangerous to the migrants in their care and to their co-workers.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded to the report on Twitter, writing “This isn’t about ‘a few bad eggs.’ This is a violent culture.”
ProPublica also said that the Facebook page is only one recent example of the kind of behavior described in their report.
They noted that other investigations have shown enforcement officers engaging in extremist, anti-government, and white supremacist Facebook Groups, specifically citing a border agent who hit a migrant with a truck and was found sending texts using racial slurs.
See what others are saying: (Washington Post) (CNN) (Fox News)
Politics
While Many Cheer Kamala Harris as Biden’s VP Pick, Others Scrutinize Her Past as California’s AG
- After Joe Biden named Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Ca.) as his running mate, many celebrities and Democrats cheered the decision.
- On the other side of the aisle, President Donald Trump immediately attacked Harris, sharing an ad that called her part of the radical left and “phony Kamala.” That phrase was then echoed by Fox News and trended on Twitter.
- Some who identify as Democrats or liberals have also questioned Biden’s pick, noting that Harris’ time as attorney general has proved to be controversial.
- Still, some analysts have argued that a vice presidential pick will likely not substantially affect an election, and many already planning to vote for the Democratic candidate have said despite reservations, they don’t plan on changing their vote.
Celebrities and Major Democrats Cheer Harris Pick
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has selected Kamala Harris (D-CA.) as his running mate. Immediately, the response to that decision was strong and widely varied, even within the Democratic party.
Many congratulated Harris for being both the first Black and first Asian-American women to run as vice president on a major political party’s ticket.
“Was there ever more of an exciting day?” actress Mindy Kaling tweeted.
“For our entire country of course, but especially for my Black and Indian sisters, many of us who have gone our entire lives thinking that someone who looks like us may never hold high office? We work so hard and contribute to the fabric of our lives in America, & now to see @SenKamalaHarris rise to the top like this? It’s thrilling!! I am filled with hope and excitement. Thank you @JoeBiden. Let’s do this!”
Kaling was also joined by numerous other celebrities, including Kerry Washington, LeBron James, Chrissy Teigen, and John Legend.
Alongside celebrities, a number of major Democrats have backed Harris, including some who are seen as possible candidates to join Biden’s administration should he win the November election.
Trump Denounces Harris as “Phony”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump immediately took aim at Harris, tweeting an ad that called her part of the “radical left” and “phony Kamala.”
The same night, similar sentiments made their way to Fox News, where commentator Jesse Watters said, “She’s kind of a phony who never caught on.” Alongside that, “Phony Kamala” trended on Twitter Tuesday night.
Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee Chair, has also blasted Biden for picking Harris, saying he “chose the person who would actually be in charge the next four years if he is somehow able to win.”
“Kamala Harris’ extreme positions, from raising taxes to abolishing private health insurance to comparing law enforcement officials to the KKK, show that the left-wing mob is controlling Biden’s candidacy, just like they would control him as president,” McDaniel said. “These radical policies might be popular among liberals, but they are well outside the mainstream for most Americans.”
She added that Harris should expect “an unprecedented level of scrutiny and attention.”
Scrutiny Into Harris’ Time as California AG
Regardless of political views, McDaniel’s prediction has proved right: scrutiny has already been widespread since Tuesday.
Most of that stems from Harris’ time as the “top cop” attorney general of California, and it’s come from both sides of the aisle. The difference? While many conservatives have painted Harris as too extreme for America, some liberals have argued that she is simply too moderate and that her actions as attorney general don’t align with the current cultural flashpoint America is in — especially for what they want to see out of the Democratic Party.
For example, many online have taken issue with the fact that Harris used to be a police officer, a career that has become increasingly polarized as calls to defund police departments are receiving more support than ever.
Some hoping to oust Trump have feared that Biden’s choosing of her could cause a split in the party, leading to Trump’s re-election. Many experts have shut that idea down, saying that a vice presidential candidate isn’t likely to make or break the election. Others online have echoed that sentiment, saying that even if they aren’t enthused, they still plan to vote for Biden and Harris.
Many have also attempted to ease concerns from liberals by pointing to a Propublica report that shows Harris voting alongside the much more progressive Bernie Sanders 93% of the time in 2017 and 2018.
Police Shootings in San Francisco
Harris was first elected as California’s attorney general in 2011, and she served in that role until 2017 when she won her current Senate seat.
For her part, Harris has described herself as a “progressive prosecutor” who’s tough on crime but also addresses inequities in the criminal justice system. She has long-claimed that she became a prosecutor because she wanted to change that system from within.
But her role as attorney general carries a significant amount of baggage. For example, after Michael Brown was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, many urged her to launch an investigation into a series of police shootings in San Francisco.
Despite this, Harris said that her office did not have the power to initiate those types of investigations except in extreme circumstances. In 2015, she refused to back a bill that would have required her office to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate cases involving police misconduct.
In 2016, Harris proposed what The New York Times described as a “modest” expansion of her office’s powers to investigate police use of force. By that time, she had also begun reviewing two municipal police departments and backed a Justice Department investigation in San Francisco.
“Critics saw her taking baby steps when bold reform was needed — a microcosm of a career in which she developed a reputation for taking cautious, incremental action on criminal justice and, more often than not, yielding to the status quo,” The New York Times reported.
Critics have similarly held Harris accountable for saying in her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime,” “If we take a show of hands of those who would like to see more police officers on the street, mine would shoot up.”
“Virtually all law-abiding citizens feel safer when they see officers walking a beat,” she added. “This is as true in economically poor areas as in wealthy ones.”
However, earlier this summer following the death of George Floyd, she said, “It is status-quo thinking to believe that putting more police on the streets creates more safety. That’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”
Likely, this plays into the reason why Trump and other conservatives have attacked Harris as being “phony.” For liberals, the opposing comments (along with other controversies) have similarly raised questions about whether she is a “pragmatic progressive” or if she has genuinely shifted ideology over the last 11 years.
Prison Labor
One of the most notable concerns surrounding Harris stems from 2011 when the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce prison crowding. In that decision, justices ruled that conditions in state prisons were so bad they violated the 8th Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
Then-justice Anthony Kennedy further wrote that the prison system in the state had failed to deliver the minimum level of care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health problems, producing “needless suffering and death.”
At the time, Harris created a division in her office to help counties devise alternatives to incarceration, and in February 2014, the state agreed to reduce its prison population by releasing nonviolent prisoners with only two felonies after serving half of their sentences.
However, by November 2014, Harris’ office unsuccessfully argued in court against releasing too many prisoners eligible for parole — prisoners it had agreed to release — because “if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.”
At the time, Deputy Attorney General Patrick McKinney also argued against releasing those prisoners because many were being used as firefighters to combat California’s fire season.
According to The Los Angeles Times, most of those prisoners were earning only between 8 and 37 cents an hour.
Harris later denied that she ever knew such an argument was being used in court and later directed her lawyers not to make that argument in the future.
“The way that argument played out in court does not reflect my priorities,” she told the website ThinkProgress. “The idea that we incarcerate people to have indentured servitude is one of the worst possible perceptions. I feel very strongly about that. It evokes images of chain gangs.”
Mass Incarceration
Also related to prisons, Harris has faced criticism involving her arrest record regarding marijuana offenses.
In fact, on Tuesday, a clip of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hi.) from a presidential debate last year resurfaced. In that clip, Gabbard attacks Harris’ policing of marijuana offenses.
“There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard’s claims are a little misleading. It appears Gabbard was citing an article from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet that ran the headline: “Kamala Harris Packed California Prisons With Pot Peddlers.”
However, during Harris’ time as attorney general, around 1,900 marijuana and hashish offenses were recorded. Though that’s actually higher than what Gabbard claimed, a few points should be clarified.
For one, marijuana offenses dramatically dropped after Harris’ first year in office.
The vast majority of those cases also weren’t directly prosecuted by her office. Instead, lower-level attorneys prosecuted those cases.
Both former lawyers in her office and defense attorneys who’ve worked on drug cases have also argued that most of those people were never locked up. In fact, they contend that only a few dozen were sent to state prison for marijuana convictions while Harris was in office.
Blocking DNA Evidence
In the resurfaced Gabbard clip, the Hawaii rep. also claims that Harris “blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.”
Gabbard is likely referring to a Black man by the name of Kevin Cooper, who was convicted of hacking and murdering four people in a family in 1983. In 1985, he was then placed on death row but has continued to maintain his innocence ever since.
Along with his claims, there have been serious concerns over his conviction. For example, an 8-year-old witness described the perpetrators as three white men.
According to an investigative column from The New York Times, brown and blond hairs were found in the victims’ hands, yet Cooper had black hair and an afro at the time. In fact, sheriff’s deputies never found Cooper’s hair or even his fingerprints at the scene.
One woman even called police and told them that she believed the murderer was her boyfriend — a man who was already a convicted murder — after she found his bloody overalls and noticed that a hatchet had gone missing.
Still, police proceeded to investigate Cooper, who had been found hiding near the family’s home after escaping from a prison on a burglary conviction.
Decades later, in 2016, Cooper’s attorneys filed a clemency petition insisting that newly available DNA testing would exonerate him; however, Harris’ office refused to allow that DNA testing.
It wasn’t until 2018 when Harris — now in the Senate — said in a Facebook post that she hoped the state would allow DNA testing for Cooper’s case. That finally moved forward last year after Gavin Newsom (D) was elected governor of California.
While Harris was never forced to lift the block on that evidence like Gabbard claimed, her office did still block it all the same.
Following the attack from Gabbard last year, Harris’ campaign spokesperson denied that she was ever directly involved in that decision.
“Senator Harris ran an office of 5,000 people and takes responsibility for all the actions of the [California] Department of Justice during her tenure,” he said.
“Most of the legal activity around this case occurred before her terms in office, but this specific request was made to and decided by lower level attorneys. When the case was brought to her attention, she publicly called for further DNA testing. She has always been a strong proponent of DNA testing and again, an opponent of the death penalty.”
See what others are saying: (The New York Times) (SF Weekly) (CNN)
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