SECRET FACEBOOK PAGE LAID BARE, AOC SCREAMS, REVEREND SETS RECORD STRAIGHT
SECRET FACEBOOK PAGE LAID BARE, AOC
SCREAMS, REVEREND SETS RECORD STRAIGHT
7/3/2019
This week's news cycle has been overtaken by scandals at the southern border. Border Protection officers are under intense scrutiny due to a ProPublica article depicting the officers in a heinous light. Besides that, media magnet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) decided to take a tour of the El Paso, Texas Border Protection Facility and the headlines blew up.
ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom, published an article on Monday unmasking a "private" Facebook page. In this page agents posted, commented, and shared vile "memes" aimed at numerous individuals including Ocasio-Cortez. A USA Today article described the Facebook page as,
“the most recent example of some law enforcement personnel behaving badly in public and private digital spaces.”
The report explains how the page contained vulgar posts referring to Latina lawmakers as, "Scum Buckets" and "hoes." According to ProPublica,
"ProPublica received images of several recent discussions in the 10-15 Facebook group and was 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. ProPublica has so far been unable to reach the group member who made the postings.
ProPublica contacted three spokespeople for CBP in regard to the Facebook group and provide names of three agents whoo(sic) appear to have participated in the online chats. CBP hasn't yet responded."
Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner, Office of Professional Responsibility released a statement publicly saying,
"Today, U.S Customs and Border Protection was made aware of disturbing social media activity hosted on a private Facebook group that may include a number of CBP employees. CBP immediately informed DHS Office of the Inspector General and initiated an investigation."
What is most surprising to us about this discovery is that some people still consider their online activity to be private. In 2019, nothing online is truly private. If ProPublica's article is found to have validity, this once genuine forum for CBP agents to share stories, expeditiously evolved into a grotesque platform to mock immigrants and promote violence.
The second wave of the news cycle was when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) along with 14 other members of Congress, visited the El Paso, Texas Border facility. While waiting to enter the facility Ocasio-Cortez went off to a nearby holding area to apparently talk to the family inside.
According to a witness who was present at the time, the next thing that happened was,
"She(AOC) comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning(of the tour) ... crying and screaming and yelling"
The witness also said,
"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 ... They were like, 'Hey, you need to kinda step back.'"
What seemed to be the biggest part of this story is when Ocasio-Cortez was told by a detainee that one person in the facility was forced to drink toilet water. On Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez made the following statement,
"Now I've seen the inside of these facilities. It's not just the kids. It's everyone. 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."
She also tweeted,
"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 & told them to drink out of the toilets. This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress."
In response to the congresswoman's allegations, an agent at the facility said that Ocasio-Cortez was misrepresenting why the person drank water from the toilet. He stated,
"So this is what happened with the migrant and drinking water from a toilet: she wanted water, didn't know how to use the faucet in the cell, and drank from the toilet. She never told AOC that we made her drink from the toilet. AOC, of course, changed it ... This was when she(the migrant) was apprehended and brought into the facility."
Another Border Patrol official aware of the congressional visits claimed that the city's congresswoman Veronica Escobar(D-TX) had visited the stations over "15 times" and had not responded in the same way that her fellow delegate did.
This story ended up catching the attention of a group of pastors from the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. They are known as being the largest Hispanic Christian Organization. The day following the congressional delegates visit, the pastors requested their own tour of the same facility.
After touring the detention center, President of the NHCLC Rev. Samuel Rodriguez said that Ocasio-Cortez was misinforming the public and that the conditions he saw was, "drastically different". Rodriguez also stated,
"I read the reports, saw the news clips. I just wanted to see what was actually happening in order to better enable our efforts to find a fair and just solution to our broken immigration system ... To my surprised, I saw something drastically different from the stories I've been hearing in our national discourse. Even as a veteran of immigration advocacy in the U.S., I was shocked at the misinformation of the crisis at the border."
Rodriguez, who has advised President Trump and both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush on immigration reform went on to say,
"We found no soiled diapers, no deplorable conditions and no lack of basic necessities,"
He also remarked, adding that he specifically asked border agents if they staged the facility in response to the negative press.
"They unequivocally denied it --- we were witnessing the identical conditions the attorneys saw when they toured the facility days earlier."
When the tour came to and end the pastors left with confidence in America's Border Patrol. They felt that the agents commitment and dedication was unmistakable. The pastors made sure to note that many of the agents are Latino themselves. Rev. Samuel Rodriguez was also quoted as saying,
“What's heart-wrenching is that we have both Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress, who can't come together for the purpose of doing the right thing and finding a solution to our immigration crisis,” he said. “Please, President Trump, please White House, work with the Republicans and the Democrats [and] please, please, please, please, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, please come together to solve this crisis, immediately.”
Board member and immigrant, Pastor Carlos Moran, who was also on the tour said,
“We, as evangelical leaders that serve in different segments, are very committed to helping children regardless of their status and we commend those officers that are trying their very best to serve and fulfill their duty at the border. However, we do call on our political leaders to set aside their personal agendas and begin focusing on resolving this immigration crisis.”
So do we place blame for our broken immigration system on President Trump and his administration? Do we place blame on Democrats? Do we place blame on misleading information from politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or blame the American Border Patrol? Truth is, it doesn’t matter who’s to blame. It is that we have a broken immigration system that is causing both immigrants and United States citizens to suffer the consequences.
You can believe that in order to fix the problem you have to find an accountable party or you can believe we need a wall built and work on our immigration system that way. Whatever you believe, the common denominator is that we all want better immigration policies. Now we will see if the Federal Government will finally take care of this issue or will they just continue to let us all suffer so they can have more political currency for the next election. Time will tell.
Sources:
https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-agents-joke-about-migrant-deaths-post-sexist-memes
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/aoc-screamed-at-border-patrol-agents-in-threatening-manner-during-tour-witnesses
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/immigration-border-facility-aoc-hispanic
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