Border Control agents have a secret Facebook group that’s full of racist, sexist memes
“Let’s start a go fund me for one CTX agent to throw a 10-15 burrito at these bitches,” posted a member of the Facebook group “I am 10-15” in response to a planned visit by U.S. representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY] and Veronica Escobar [D-TX]. This is perhaps one of the least offensive comments unearthed in ProPublica‘s review of the private Facebook group for Border Control agents.
The code “10-15” refers to an “alien in custody.” The Facebook group has some 9,500 members, according to the report.
The story reveals a slew of racist and sexist commentary, allegedly made by the very people in charge of guarding the lives of the tens of thousands of adults and children being detained across the U.S. Among the postings ProPublica reviewed were doctored images of Ocasio-Cortez in sexually compromised positions with both President Donald Trump and a detained migrant (you can read the full details of the report to get the specifics). In other postings, members of the group showed indifference to the lives of detainees. For instance, in regards to a news story about a 16-year-old detainee who died in custody, one of the members wrote, “If he dies, he dies.” Another post questioned the legitimacy of the photo, snapped by a photographer at the Associated Press, of a Salvadoran man and his nearly 2-year-old daughter found dead on the edge of the Rio Grande. The person who posted the photo said the two looked “clean” and suggested it had been faked.
The report from ProPublica is just the most recent to shine a light on the way law enforcers behave in spaces they believe to be safe. Last month, Reveal released a long feature documenting showing that hundreds of police officers, spanning 50 departments, were engaged in online Facebook groups that espoused hateful messaging and ideologies.
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