In a press conference in Texas on Monday, Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said he witnessed adult migrants being kept in cells with no running water in visits to migrant facilities in the state. “We came today and we saw that the system is still broken,” he told reporters, adding that he saw 15 to 20 mothers who had been kept in a Border Patrol station for 50 days. “One of the women said that she was told by an agent to drink water out of the toilet. These are the conditions that have been created by the Trump administration,” he said. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) also described mothers, aunts, and grandmothers weeping “openly in our arms” during the visit. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) described the conditions she saw on the tours of migrant facilities as “unconscionable.” She also said one of the women she spoke to described the treatment from border authorities as “psychological warfare” and included being called whores and woken up at odd hours. “No child should ever be taken from their family. No woman should be ever locked up in the pen when they have done no harm to another human being,” Ocasio-Cortez said over screams of counter-protesters. “They should be given water. They should be given basic access to human rights.”
