No Filthy Baby Jails, No Filthy Baby Jails, YOU'RE The Filthy Baby Jails!
Please stop believing your lying eyes. And eyewitnesses. And journalists. And government reports.
The New York Times and El Paso Times co-published a major report Saturday, detailing awful conditions at a Border Patrol processing facility in Clint, Texas. The story, based on interviews with current and former Border Patrol agents and officials, as well as others who have seen the Clint facility firsthand, confirmed earlier reports that immigrant children were left in overcrowded cells and that babies were left in the care of somewhat older children , if by older you mean "eight." It also described conditions similar to those found by Homeland Security's inspector general at other facilities in the Rio Grande Valley.
So naturally enough, the Trump administration went on TV to insist it's all a lot of hooey, and the liar in chief said the Times story was a hoax. There are no real problems in the border facilities, at least none that can't be solved by WALL, and all that's needed is a bit of reality management.
Today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said she was "appalled" by the conditions at the border, as if anyone in the US government cares what the UN thinks. The UN wants to take away our sovereignty and force us to ride bicycles , after all.
The Times report largely builds on and amplifies what a team of attorneys found when they spoke to over 50 children held at the Clint facility in June. Based on "dozens of interviews" by the two newspapers of "current and former Border Patrol agents and supervisors; lawyers, lawmakers and aides who visited the facility," as well as sworn statements and other inspection reports, the investigation called conditions at Clint "the stuff of nightmares."
Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among the hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said. The stench of the children's dirty clothing was so strong it spread to the agents' own clothing — people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work. The children cried constantly. One girl seemed likely enough to try to kill herself that the agents made her sleep on a cot in front of them, so they could watch her as they were processing new arrivals.
"It gets to a point where you start to become a robot," said a veteran Border Patrol agent who has worked at the Clint station since it was built. He described following orders to take beds away from children to make more space in holding cells, part of a daily routine that he said had become "heartbreaking."
There's a lot more, including details of an internal Customs and Border Protection report that called attention to the overcrowding and health problems (bizarrely, after noting children had been held for weeks, some without brushing their teeth or showering, that inspector concluded the facility was "in compliance with standards"). The Border Patrol's facilities are only supposed to hold migrants of all ages for no more than 72 hours before they're moved to facilities run by other agencies, but many migrants have been stuck there for weeks.
Some Border Patrol agents were trying to get help for the kids, but their superiors ignored them. Not all were so worried about those in their care. Warren Binford, one of the lawyers who visited Clint weeks ago, recounted the experience of a teen mother who asked for medicine for her baby, who had a fever. When she was arrested, agents threw away all her possessions, including meds and diapers for the baby (a practice documented at other facilities in a May DHS Inspector General report ). When she asked for more medication, Binford said, agents told the mother, "Who told you to come to America with your baby, anyway?"
One veteran agent confirmed to the Times that older children were routinely asked to look after infants and toddlers, because there weren't any adults available to do it:
"We have nine agents processing, two agents in charge of U.A.C. care and we have little ones that need their diapers changed, and we can't do that," the agent said. "We can't carry them or change diapers. We do ask the older juveniles, the 16-year-olds or 17-year-olds, to help us out with that."
There's much more; as we say, read the whole piece to see what a goddamned abomination is being perpetrated in our names.
Thank goodness none of that actually happened, because Donald Trump said it didn't. On Twitter yesterday, Trump insisted it was fake, and that's all there is to it.
The Fake News Media, in particular the Failing @nytimes , is writing phony and exaggerated accounts of the Border Detention Centers. First of all, people should not be entering our Country illegally, only for us to then have to care for them. We should be allowed to focus on United States Citizens first. Border Patrol, and others in Law Enforcement, have been doing a great job.
See? That's far more reliable than some made-up newspaper story, because that's the "president" of the USA. Trump added, as usual, that the overcrowding -- which is real, but it's very CLEAN overcrowding -- is all the fault of Democrats who refuse to end "loopholes," like the very existence of asylum and due process. So everything's fine, but there's a crisis, and it's all a "Big Media Con Job!" Also, WALL!
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan also took to the TV this weekend to insist there may be some overcrowding, but nothing worse, and really, the border facilities are actually very, very good. McAleenan told ABC News's "This Week" the claims of shitty conditions are huge exaggerations, as long as you very carefully parse your terms:
"There's adequate food and water," he said. "The facility's cleaned every day, because I know what our standards are and I know they're been followed because we have tremendous levels of oversight. Five levels of oversight.
"Inadequate food, inadequate water and unclean cells. None of those have been substantiated."
There is food and water and we hose out the cells, so let's not nitpick about whether the kids have clean clothes, blankets, a mattress, or nutritious food. Sure, in Clint, the food is a constant diet of oatmeal and ramen and frozen burritos, maybe cooked, maybe not, because there's no kitchen. But it is food. Besides, as the same guy who said the entire story is a hoax said just days ago, the immigrants brought all this on themselves.
If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tel… https: //t.co/vrX7H2RBfP
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1562185350.0
Strangely, the United Nations' top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, said today she finds the situation at the border appalling, probably because she too works for the fake news media. In a statement, Bachelet pushed the radical globalist anti-American notion that children do not belong in jail.
The High Commissioner stated that several UN human rights bodies have found that the detention of migrant children may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law.*"
"As a paediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of State [Chile, where Pinochet once ruled, so let that sink in -- Dok], I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions," High Commissioner Bachelet said.
"Detaining a child even for short periods under good conditions can have a serious impact on their health and development - consider the damage being done every day by allowing this alarming situation to continue." The High Commissioner noted that immigration detention is never in the best interests of a child.
Bachelet even cited the DHS Inspector General's reports, proving that Deep State traitors in Homeland Security must be purged since they're trying to make America look bad. She added that steps other than detention can and should be used to process asylum-seekers, called for protection of due process rights, and called on the US, Mexico, and migrants' countries of origin to work together to address the root causes of migration, such as "insecurity, sexual and gender-based violence, discrimination, poverty, the adverse impacts of climate change and environmental degradation." As if those were even real things!
For heaven's sake, Bachelet didn't even once calling migrants "invaders," "illegals," or even "hordes," so that tells you all you need to know about her crazy understanding of "human rights."
We'll predict the official response to Bachelet's statement will be something along the lines of the last line of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer": It was believed afterward that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what she said.
[ NYT / Associated Press / WaPo / UN Human Rights ]
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But fruited plains is good.