Are Border Patrol agents really telling migrants to drink out of toilets?

More than a dozen House Democrats toured two Border Patrol facilities and a child-migrant shelter near El Paso, Texas, on Monday, and one specific allegation garnered lots of attention. At a facility in El Paso, lawmakers described a visit with more than a dozen Cuban women held in a crowded cell with no running water. "One of the women said that she was told by an agent to drink water out of the toilet," said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) at a news conference, amid shouts from protesters who support President Trump's border policies. "These are the conditions that have been created by the Trump administration."

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An unidentified Homeland Security Department official told The Washington Post that no Border Patrol agent would make detained migrants drink from a toilet and that clean water was available to drink. But the House Democrats were pretty specific. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) identified the toilet-sink combo they saw in the cell, in response to a skeptical tweet from Daily Mail political editor David Martosko.

"And that was them knowing that a congressional visit was coming," Ocasio-Cortez told the Post. "This is CBP on their best behavior, telling people to drink out of the toilet." Other lawmakers described the same drinking-from-a-toilet anecdote and generally appalling conditions at the detention centers.

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Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said some lawmakers also asked Border Patrol officers privately if they themselves would be safe inside the facilities, given a newly reported Facebook group where current and former Border Patrol agents mocked dead migrants, discussed throwing burritos at the Democratic lawmakers, and posted sexually explicit content about Ocasio-Cortez.