Hispanic Pastors Who Toured Same Detention Facility as AOC: 'We Found No Lack of Basic Necessities'

Eric Schaffer | July 2, 2019
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With anger surrounding immigrant detention facilities growing, spurred in large part by faulty media coverage, a group of pastors headed by Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, an immigration advisor for countless Presidents, decided to take things into their own hands.

In a press briefing on Monday, Rodriguez gave details of his tour of the same facility toured by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), saying:

To my surprise, I saw something drastically different from the stories I’ve been hearing in our national discourse. Even as a veteran of immigration advocacy in the U.S., I was shocked at the misinformation of the crisis at the border.

Rodriguez continued, “We found no soiled diapers, no deplorable conditions and no lack of basic necessities.” Preemptively countering the likely conspiracy theory that Border Patrol agents staged the facility in response to recent pressure, Rodriguez said: “They unequivocally denied it — we were witnessing the identical conditions the attorneys saw when they toured the facility days earlier."

Rodriguez’s account drastically departs from AOC’s , who claimed upon her visit to the detention facility, migrants were being forced to drink "out of toilets,” among other abuses.

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