New video released by Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro – brother of 2020 presidential candidate Julian Castro – gives another glimpse into the inhumanity Donald Trump has brought to the southern border.
In a tweet, Castro shared the video and said, “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.”
The Democratic lawmaker added, “For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1.”
Video:
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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. For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1. pic.twitter.com/OmCAlGxDt8
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
This is video confirmation of what government inspectors have already found
As Reuters noted earlier, citing new reporting from NBC News, “U.S. government inspectors reviewing a border station in El Paso, Texas, reported poor conditions for migrants, including overcrowding and a lack of sanitary conditions.”
The report “found more than half of the 756 immigrants being held at the facility were kept outside, and those inside were behind held in cells packed at five times their capacity.”
The inhumane conditions that investigators and lawmakers continue to expose fall against the backdrop of a disturbing ProPublica report published Monday which documents a new social media forum in which border patrol agents “joke about migrant deaths and post sexist memes.”
According to the report, members of the Facebook 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, according to screenshots of their postings.”
The American people need to see what’s happening on the border
Video footage like this – and the photograph of a father with her daughter after drowning while trying to cross the Rio Grande – is heartbreaking, but it is necessary for the American people to see.
It shouldn’t get swept under the rug or lost in another news cycle consumed by whatever insanity Trump happens to be spewing on Twitter.
The more we see of Trump’s inhumane detention centers on the southern border, the less this looks like the United States of America.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
