(Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Congresswoman reveals appalling conditions of the migrant detention facility

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visited a migrant detention facility on the Southern border–and says the conditions were worse than even she imagined. Ocasio-Cortez accused Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) of implementing “systematic cruelty” in the facilities to cow migrants into submission.

Ocasio-Cortez said CBP was “on its best behavior” and “did a lot of cleaning up” before she arrived because they knew members of Congress were coming to see the facilities for themselves. Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez reported that migrants were given only one small packet of shampoo to clean themselves, lacked soap and toothbrushes, and were even instructed to drink toilet water.

“CBP made us check our phones. But one woman slipped me this packet to take with me,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted along with a photo of a small shampoo packet. “It says ‘shampoo,’ but she told me that this is all they give women to wash their entire body. Nothing else. Some women’s hair was falling out. Others had gone 15 days without taking a shower.”

She also tweeted a photo of a steel sink and toilet, but noted that the sink had no running water.

“The sink portion was not functioning – @AyannaPressley smartly tried to open the faucet, and nothing came out,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, referring to fellow Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. “So the women were told they could drink out of the bowl.”

When the group of Congresswomen talked to the migrant women, “they all began sobbing—out of fear of being punished, out of sickness, out of desperation, lack of sleep, trauma, despair,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

Congress passed a bill last Thursday that would expand humanitarian aid to detention facilities, including better medical services and adequate hygiene and sanitation products.