AOC Suggests CBP Planned to Shoot Her: ‘I Was Not Safe from the Officers in that Facility’
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is accusing agents of Customs and Border Patrol of putting her in bodily danger, possibly even planning to shoot her.
The freshman Democrat had just left the second border facility she toured with other Democratic lawmakers when she accused federal agents of threatening her physical safety.
"I mean, in that last facility, I was not safe from the officers in that facility,” she told reporters as she walked from the premises.
AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, suggested there was a real possibility a CPB officer might shoot the lawmaker: “Imagine all your hateful trolls online, but with guns. Imagine walking into a fenced area full of them. No exit. You don't get to take any cameras or phones with you. And those trolls with guns? They're the ones in charge of protecting you. That's what @AOC faced today.”
The New York congresswoman followed up on Twitter, suggesting CBP agents put her life in danger.
“And to these CBP officers saying they felt ‘threatened’ by me - They were literally discussing making a GoFundMe for an officer who attacked my [sic] on my tour,” she tweeted. “They confiscated my phone, and they were all armed. I’m 5’4”. They’re just upset I exposed their inhumane behavior.”
Earlier in the morning, AOC courted controversy after accusing another border facility in El Paso, Texas, of forcing women to drink toilet water.
“Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets,” she tweeted. “This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress.”
AOC indicated she had been told this from women she spoke with, but then later said she discovered a broken sink herself.
Customs and Border Patrol vigorously denied AOC’s claims of forcing women to drink toilet water.
“No one is drinking toilet water,” a CBP official said. “They're drinking potable water from the sink attached to the toilet. It's what you would find in every municipal jail in the United States.”
AOC’s colleague, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) posted a video saying the Democratic delegation was told about a broken sink. AOC, however, posted another update to Twitter saying she and Rep. Ayanna Pressley discovered the broken faucet.
Referring to the sink/toilet fixture, AOC said of a “cell” she visited: “The sink portion was not functioning – @AyannaPressley smartly tried to open the faucet, and nothing came out. So the women were told they could drink out of the bowl.”
The Washington Examiner reported that AOC did not actually tour the border facility and made a scene by screaming at border agents.
“She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning [of the tour] … Crying and screaming and yelling,” a witness told the Examiner. “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 … They were like, ‘Hey, you need to kinda step back.’”
