JULY 1, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday described the abysmal conditions she and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other House Democrats saw after visiting two immigration detention facilities in Texas, and said she'd learned that Customs and Border Patrol officers told detained women to "drink out of the toilets."

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said that border patrol agents were keeping migrant women in their cells with no food or water and treated them poorly.

She tweeted: “After I forced myself into a cell w/ women & began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as ‘psychological warfare’ — waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc... Tell me what about that is due to a 'lack of funding'?”

@JoaquinCastrotx

Their visit followed news of a secret Facebook group with over 9,500 CBP agents that was used as a platform to joke about migrant death and post vulgar comments about Hispanic members of Congress.

Tonight on MSNBC, one of the members of Congress who visited the camps, Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), joined Chris Hayes to discuss what she saw in Texas.

“It’s more than a lack of resources and funding,” she said, “It’s really a lack of treating people like they're human beings, it’s a lack of treating people with dignity and respect that they deserve, and that is part of this problem that isn’t focused on that we need to make sure we focus on.”

According to a Department of Homeland Security internal report contained by NBC News, inspectors warned border agents back in May to arm themselves in preparation for possible riots as a result of the conditions at the detention facilities.

The warnings directly contradict statements from a top Trump administration official who said the reports on poor conditions for migrants were “unsubstantiated.”

Also Monday, the Associated Press released a video of a 12-year-old migrant girl describing conditions at a child detention center to her attorney. The girl was held with her sister in the Clint, Texas center that has come under fire for holding children in unsanitary conditions.

In the video, she described the conditions inside the camp, saying that children slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents. She was not allowed to bathe or play with the other children.

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OPINION. Trump-Kim Jong Un talks shouldn't focus on getting North Korea to give up its nukes. U.S. leaders still must confront the unpleasant reality that Pyongyang is unlikely to abandon its modest nuclear capability. Such a deterrent is North Korea’s ace in the hole to prevent the United States from contemplating forcible regime change. By Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute.

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What to watch Tuesday

On Tuesday, Mayor Pete Buttigieg addresses the Rainbow Push Coalition breakfast, after news of a fund-raising haul following the Democratic debate. Buttigieg is still responding to the news of a controversial police shooting in his city. We'll bring you the latest.

We'll also be monitoring protests in Hong Kong and other news out of southeast Asia following President Trump's meeting with Kim Jung Un.

More House Democrats, including Rep. Frederica Wilson, Rep. Donna Shalala and Rep. John Lewis, are scheduled to tour migrant facilities Tuesday, this time in Homestead, Florida.

This newsletter was prepped for you by Bridget Brown, Sara Afzal, and Cameron Taylor Oakes.

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