CNN confirms, lawmakers who toured the Texas border facilities yesterday did not actually witness migrants drinking from the toilet.
And the “toilet” Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was referring to when she made her outlandish claim following a tour in Texas on Monday is really a sink-toilet combination device commonly used in detention centers.
Rep. Norma Torres, who toured border facilities in Texas yesterday, said migrant women told her there was no running water in their cell except for the toilet.
“It is inhumane … we need to send every single one of these border agents back to training” https://t.co/UxneeLdisO pic.twitter.com/I3FR8c0wfs
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 2, 2019
“Surely, women are not drinking out of the toilets in these facilities. Did you see that?” CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked Rep. Norma Torres, one of several lawmakers who toured the Texas facilities along with AOC.
“I did not see women drinking out of the toilet,” Torres said. “However, that is exactly what these women said to us, that there is no running water within the cell except for a flushable toilet.”
That’s a bit different than the bombastic claims AOC made when she stormed out of one of the facilities in a huff yesterday.
“There’s abuse in this facility,” AOC said after a visit in Clint, Texas. “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 CBP officers to drink out of the toilet.
“They were drinking water out of the toilet. And that was them knowing a congressional visit was coming. This was CBP on their best behavior telling people to drink out of the toilet!” she said.
The congresswoman rolled the car window up and left when a reporter asked whether she actually witnessed anyone drinking from the toilet.
AOC repeated the outlandish claim that federal agents “had told them to drink out of the toilets” in a series of posts to Twitter, as well, but others who were present during the tour contend the lawmaker is sensationalizing and politicizing a terrible situation.
“She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning (of the tour) … Crying and screaming and yelling,” a witness told The Washington Examiner.
The unnamed witness and a second who confirmed the account told the news site the outburst occurred in front of dozens of stunned agents.
“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 …,” the source said. “They were like, ‘Hey, you need to kinda step back.’”
A second person who attended the visit told the Examiner AOC repeatedly left and returned to an official briefing to talk with migrants and relay allegations from detainees, including a claim that one person had drank from the toilet. AOC reportedly did not tour the facility with 13 other Democrats who participated and instead stayed behind to antagonize agents.
The lawmaker repeatedly referenced a Monday news report about a Facebook page where current and former Border Patrol agents allegedly opine on their work, the relentless waves of illegal immigrants overwhelming the agency, and lawmakers – including AOC – who refuse to fix the legal loopholes driving the crisis.
While other Democrats toured the Texas detention center, AOC was busy instigating an investigation, the unnamed official told the Examiner.
“Something under her breath, ‘Oh, all these guys in here are gonna f**k me.’ The agents are standing there behind the computers. One of the agents laughed at something he was saying to another agent, and she got irate and flipped out,” the source said. “Now they’re under investigation for it. She took it as they were laughing at her and screams at them and says, ‘What’s so funny?’
The agent at the scene told the Examiner the claim about a woman drinking from the toilet was also contrived to fit AOC’s narrative.
“So this is what happened with the migrant and drinking water from the 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,” the agent said. “AOC, of course, changed it … This was when she (the migrant) was apprehended and brought to the facility.”
The inside sources pointed out that several other lawmakers have toured the facility numerous times without issue.
AOC herself confirmed Tuesday that there’s more to her toilet water claim than she initially disclosed.
I haven’t seen photo of the Clint, TX facilities that @AOC described today, but it would be interesting if “drinking from the toilet” meant drinking from an attached sink marked “potable water” — like this image from a CBP holding facility in Tuscon (filed in federal court). pic.twitter.com/uDbhy1GPOa
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) July 1, 2019
“I haven’t seen photo of the Clint, TX facilities that @AOC described today, but it would be interesting if ‘drinking from the toilet’ meant drinking from an attached sink marked ‘potable water’ – like this image from a CBP holding facility in Tuscon (filed in federal court),” the Daily Mail’s David Marosko posted to Twitter.
Marosko included an image of a stainless steel toilet-sink combination device that’s common in jails and other types of holding facilities.
“This was in fact the type of toilet we saw in the cell,” AOC responded. “Except there was just one, and the sink portion was not functioning – @AyannaPressley smartly tried to open the faucet, and nothing came out.”
Martosko asked AOC what she personally witnessed, but he hasn’t heard back.
Your tweets suggested you personally heard the guard tell them this today, but Rep. Chu said one of the women told you that story. Some reports suggest they were moved inside just today from outdoor tents, so it’s unclear how long they’d been in that cell. What did you witness? https://t.co/nilWGMXGNw
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) July 2, 2019
“Your tweets suggested you personally heard the guard tell them this today, but Rep. Chu said one of the women told you that story,” Martosko tweeted, referring to the toilet drinking. “Some reports suggest they were moved inside just today from outdoor tents, so it’s unclear how long they’d been in that cell. What did you witness?”
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