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News > U.S.

Rashida Tlaib Witnesses Migrants Abuse in ICE Detention, Calls for Ending 'Disgusting' Policy

  • Rashida Tlaib and other Congress members visited migrant facilities in Texas to highlight the brutality they face.

    Rashida Tlaib and other Congress members visited migrant facilities in Texas to highlight the brutality they face. | Photo: Reuters

Published 2 July 2019
Opinion

"What we saw today, what we did today, is try to bring the eyes, the ears that you all can't have when we go into these facilities," Tlaib said. 

Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and other Congress members went to two federal immigration detention facilities in Texas Monday to shed light on the inhumane conditions the migrants are subjected to and, also the abuse of power by U.S. border patrol officers. 

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"I will outwork your hate. I will out-love your hate,” the congresswoman said while vowing to fight against Trump administrations migrant policies. "What we saw today, what we did today, is try to bring the eyes, the ears that you all can't have when we go into these facilities," Tlaib said during a press conference as racist supporters of the U.S. President Donald Trump heckled her.

"Even through the hateful slurs, I won't back down. We went in there to be the eyes for the American people, to tell the truth about what is happening with children and families at the border. This system is broken and throwing money at it won't work,” she later wrote on Twitter. 

 

Pressley also criticized the racist slurs by Trump’s supporters, saying that they are, "vile rhetoric for vile actions."

"This is about the preservation of our humanity. And this is about seeing every person there as a member of your own family. I am tired of the health and the safety, the humanity, and the full freedoms of black and brown children being negotiated, and compromised, and moderated. We need a system that works, that is humane, and that is compassionate, and that keeps families together," she said. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also visited the facilities with others after which she informed that migrants held at a border patrol station in Texas were subjected to psychological abuse and told to drink out of toilets.

“After I forced myself into a cell with women and began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as 'psychological warfare'", Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term New York Democrat, wrote on Twitter after leaving the El Paso border patrol station.

Other lawmakers like Judy Chu said the facilities were “appalling” and “disgusting.”

"We talked to a group of women detainees who said that they didn't have running water," said Chu. "One was an epileptic and she couldn't get her medication. They were separated from their children. They'd been there over 50 days."

The tours were organized by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus days after the Democrats and Republicans passed a US$4.6 billion Senate border funding bill which does not have any safeguards for migrant children caged by the Trump administration. 

The Border Patrol also came under fire on Monday following a report by the non-profit news site ProPublica showing how offensive content had been posted on a private Facebook group hosting current and former Border Protection officers. 

Posts included jokes about the deaths of migrants and sexually explicit comments referencing Ocasio-Cortez, the news outlet said.

After the congresswomen highlighted the brutality that migrants face in the facilities, a coalition of progressive advocacy groups called for protests at local congressional offices nationwide Tuesday. 

"We've seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers," wrote the coalition, led by MoveOn.org, United We Dream, and Families Belong Together.

"They are the byproduct of an intentional strategy by the Trump administration to terrorize immigrant communities and criminalize immigration."​​​​​​​

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