San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro on Monday evening tweeted photos and video taken at migrant detention centers in Texas and urged Americans to wake up to the way the government is treating refugees.
The Democratic lawmaker captured the images during a visit by a Congressional Hispanic Caucus delegation to Customs and Border Protection detention sites in El Paso and Clint.
“Our border patrol system is broken. And part of the reason it stays broken is because it’s kept secret,” tweeted Castro, the caucus’ chairman. “The American people must see what is being carried out in their name.”
The string of tweets also include video of detained women huddled under blankets and sitting on the floor of a holding cell in El Paso site. One of the women can be heard telling Castro she hasn’t received medication she needs.
“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,” Castro wrote. “For some, it also means being separated from their children.”
The string of tweets also described mobile showers — “dank, dirty and only too small in number” — and outside tents used to accommodate hundreds of recent arrivals fleeing Central American countries for the U.S.-Mexico border.
“They asked us to take down their names and let everyone know they need help,” Castro tweeted. “They also feared retribution.”
Monday’s visit by members of the caucus came on the same day that investigative journalists at ProPublica revealed the existence of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents where posters joked about migrant deaths and posted crude memes about Latina lawmakers.
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This article appears in The Pride Issue.
