July 1, 2019

Border Patrol Agents Have a Secret Facebook Group, Where Racism and Sexism Prevail

“This isn’t about ‘a few bad eggs,’” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded. “This is a violent culture.”

Shealah Craighead/Zuma

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Current and former Border Patrol agents, who are responsible in part for detaining people who enter the US illegally, have displayed shocking callousness toward immigrants and women in a secret Facebook page with roughly 9,500 members.

On Monday, ProPublica revealed the page, highlighting Facebook posts that included slurs toward immigrant groups and sexist comments about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas). The group, called “I’m 10-15,” takes its name from the Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.” One post questions whether Democrats staged the photo of a Salvadoran migrant and his 23-month-old daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande. Another crudely photoshopped image shows Ocasio-Cortez performing oral sex on President Donald Trump.

Amid a national discussion about the inhumane treatment of migrants at the US–Mexico border, the Facebook page provides insight into the mindset of those who are employed to secure the border. The page shows “a pervasive culture of cruelty aimed at immigrants within CBP,” Daniel Martinez, a sociologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson told ProPublica. “This isn’t just a few rogue agents or ‘bad apples.’”

Ocasio-Cortez responded to the news on Twitter.

Ocasio-Cortez visited a Border Patrol facility on Monday and said that officers had “no accountability” for their actions.

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