On Tuesday, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus held a hearing on the humanitarian crisis on the ten of thousands of unaccompanied minors flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border. During that hearing, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) likened the cold temperatures maintained inside the holding facilities to “torture.”
Despite temperatures having reached over 100 degrees in El Paso, TX, the location of a Border Patrol holding facility, the Illinois Democrat insisted that the children were “deliberately held in really uncomfortable situations.”
Jessica Jones, with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service agreed with the “torture” description and said it was a “way of subduing the people being held.”
Jonathan Ryan, the executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services took it a step father accusing the Border Patrol of lying about the reason for cold temperatures in holding facilities, which was “to prevent the spread of disease.” Ryan argued their true motive is “to spread this idea that these people are disease spreading.”
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