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Joaquin Castro
Our border patrol system is broken. And part of the reason it stays broken is because it’s kept secret. The American people must see what is being carried out in their name. The @HispanicCaucus led a delegation of members of Congress to visit 2 border patrol facilities.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
Here’s what we found:
At the El Paso Border Patrol Station #1, women from Cuba, some grandmothers, crammed into a prison-like cell with one toilet, but no running water to drink from or wash their hands with. Concrete floors, cinder-block walls, steel toilets.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
Many said they had not bathed for 15 days. Some had been separated from children, some had been held for more than 50 days. Several complained they had not received their medications, including one for epilepsy. Members of Congress comforted them when the women broke down.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
They asked us to take down their names and let everyone know they need help. They also feared retribution. We then went to the Clint Border Patrol Station that warehouses children and some parents.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
The tents outside, used during the surge recently, were dark and surrounded by chain link fences. The showers — mobile units — were dank, dirty and only too small in number for the hundreds of people there just a few weeks ago.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019
And a boy, perhaps three years old, pressed his face against the dirty glass of a locked steel door. He smiled big and tried to talk to us through the thick glass. His family — or another — ate Ramen on the floor a few feet away.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019