Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) admitted Monday that illegal aliens residing in migrant shelters are given basic hygienic products such as shampoo, despite the fact that she has been claiming for weeks that the Trump administration is actively “fighting to not give children toothpaste or soap.”
The freshman lawmaker – along with fellow Democrat lawmakers – toured migrant shelters in the El Paso area Monday. She has been providing updates to her 4.59 million Twitter followers, detailing what she claims are ratty facilities with abysmal care and rampant mistreatment by law enforcement. However, she made one small concession Monday afternoon, tweeting a picture of a shampoo packet supposedly handed to her by a woman in the facility.
“CBP made us check our phones. But one woman slipped me this packet to take with me. It says ‘shampoo,’ but she told me that this is all they give women to wash their entire body,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
“Nothing else. Some women’s hair was falling out,” she claimed. “Others had gone 15 days without taking a shower.”
Ocasio-Cortez listed a range of other potential abuses in a series of tweets Monday afternoon, even accusing U.S.Customs and Border Protection agents of threatening her physically and sexually.
She also claimed a migrant woman told her she fears “retribution” for speaking out on the conditions.
Still, Ocasio-Cortez dismissed calls for additional funding.
There were reports earlier that Ocasio-Cortez screamed at law enforcement during the tour, according to two people who witnessed the incident.
“She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning [of the tour] … Crying and screaming and yelling,” one witness said, according to the Examiner.
A second official said that while she was around agents, Ocasio-Cortez commented at another point about an unofficial Border Patrol Facebook page that was exposed earlier Monday for offensive content about those in custody and lawmakers, including the congresswoman.
“Something under her breath, ‘Oh, all these guys in here are gonna f–k me.’ The agents are standing there behind the computers. One of the agents laughed at something he was saying to another agent, and she got irate and flipped out,” the second Border Patrol official said. “Now they’re under investigation for it. She took it as they were laughing at her and screams at them and says, ‘What’s so funny?’”
“The agents, they wanted to respond, but they held back because she’s a congressional delegate. But when you have someone yelling at you in a threatening manner … ” the first witness added. “They were like, ‘Hey, you need to kinda step back.’”