As lawmakers describe living conditions unfit for humans at Border Patrol facilities, Trump supporters hurl insults

As lawmakers describe living conditions unfit for humans at Border Patrol facilities, Trump supporters hurl insults


The New York Times reports:

[Representative Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet that Customs and Border Protection “did a lot of ‘cleaning up’ before we arrived.” She said women told her they had gone 15 days without a shower and were allowed to start bathing only four days ago, after the congressional visit was announced.

Some women, she said, told her they were forced to drink out of the toilet when the faucet in their cell broke. A Customs and Border Protection official declined to comment on the accusation.

Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, speaking on Monday after touring a Border Patrol facility in Clint.

At a news conference on Monday afternoon, the lawmakers’ emotional descriptions were almost completely drowned out by vulgar and racist heckling from a handful of protesters, some carrying Trump 2020 banners and posters calling for tougher border security, deportation and the construction of a wall at the southwestern border.

“Bunch of knuckleheads,” one man yelled as the lawmakers tried to describe what they had seen at a Border Patrol station in El Paso and a migrant facility in Clint. “Break out the onions,” a woman cried, mocking how some of the Democrats grew visibly emotional in front of the microphones.

“We don’t want Muslims here,” another yelled, minutes before Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, vowed to “outlove your hate.”

“You can all scream at me,” she said. “I will never stop speaking truth to power.” [Continue reading…]

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