America At Our Worst: Racists Are Running the Camps (w/Update)

Update: Thanks to Crooksandliars.com adding me today to Mike's Blog Roundup! There are reports this morning that Congress will open public hearings on the mistreatment in these camps and there's an Inspector General's report I wanna link to later.

Jesus Christ (via AC Thompson at ProPublica):

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents 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.

What the hell.

Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called “I’m 10-15” and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.”) The group described itself, in an online introduction, as a forum for “funny” and “serious” discussion about work with the patrol. “Remember you are never alone in this family,” the introduction said.

Responsible for policing the nation’s southern and northern boundaries, the Border Patrol has come under intense scrutiny as the Trump administration takes new, more aggressive measures to halt the influx of undocumented migrants across the United States-Mexico border. The patrol’s approximately 20,000 agents serve under the broader U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which has been faulted for allegedly mistreating children and adults in its custody. The agency’s leadership has been in turmoil, with its most recent acting chief, John Sanders, resigning last week.

9,500 out of 20,000? Granted, there are former border agents in that Facebook page, but there's a likelihood of close to HALF the people employed by that agency being a bunch of goddamned racists.

And what the HELL is Facebook doing hosting a site like this?

The Border Patrol Facebook group is the most recent example of some law enforcement personnel behaving badly in public and private digital spaces. An investigation by Reveal uncovered hundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers who moved in extremist Facebook circles, including white supremacist and anti-government groups. A team of researchers calling themselves the Plain View Project recently released a hefty database of offensive Facebook posts made by current and ex-law enforcement officers.

And in early 2018, federal investigators found a raft of disturbing and racist text messages sent by Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona after searching the phone of Matthew Bowen, an agent charged with running down a Guatemalan migrant with a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The texts, which were revealed in a court filing in federal court in Tucson, described migrants as “guats,” “wild ass shitbags,” “beaners” and “subhuman.” The messages included repeated discussions about burning the migrants up.

These are not good cops posting this crap. These are not honorable or respectable or professional people.

If you think all of the reports coming out of trump's concentration camps are "mere" exaggerations, look at these guards assigned to work these facilities and read what they're posting and sharing as jokes, mocking children who don't deserve such hate, laughing to themselves as though forcing women to give oral is just "good fun" for shits and giggles.

Read what these men are calling the families and children that are supposed to be under their care: "shitbags," "beaners," "subhuman." These are NOT terms of endearment.

That "subhuman" description should terrify you. It's that kind of dehumanizing talk the haters use to justify their violence against the people they hate. It's the language of the Klansman accusing Blacks of being "rapists and thieves," of Nazis accusing Jews of being "vermin."

This isn't free speech. This isn't anyone's right to say what they want. Because this is the kind of language and beliefs that kills people.

I hope to God there's an investigation. I hope to God every current Border Patrol officer found on that Facebook page loses their jobs, because GOD HELP US THOSE MEN SHOULD NOT BE IN CHARGE OF THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING OF ANYONE ELSE.

This is horrifying.

CLOSE THOSE GODDAMN CAMPS. There are better ways to handle migrant families. There are humane, CHRISTIAN ways of keeping immigrant families intact and healthy while we get them either home or established here to a path of citizenship.

GODDAMN THIS NATION IF WE ARE ALLOWING THESE BULLIES AND SOCIOPATHS FREE ACCESS TO HARM THE ONES THEY OPENLY DESPISE.

What the hell, America?