UPDATE: Trump calls his prison camps clean and good.
Trump says migrants are at fault for conditions at his prison camps
Trump says migrants are at fault for conditions at his prison camps
By Jake Johnson, staff writer
for Common
Dreams
In response to photos, news reports, and first-hand accounts of the horrific
conditions inside Border Patrol detention centers in Texas, President Donald
Trump fired off a tweet blaming migrants themselves for the abuse they are now enduring at the hands
of his administration.
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“I think they do a great job with
those facilities…I’ve seen some of those places,
and they are run beautifully. They’re
clean. They’re good. They do a great job.”
Donald Trump on July 5,
contradicting the findings of the Dept. of Homeland
Security’s Office of
Inspector General. Could find no instances where Trump
has actually been to “some
of those places.”
|
"If illegal immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tell them not to come," Trump wrote.
"All problems solved!"
Critics slammed the
president's tweet as a particularly "monstrous" example of victim blaming as the administration
faces accusations of rampant mistreatment of asylum seekers and immigrant
children, many of whom have been separated from their families and forced to
live in overcrowded facilities without adequate food, water, soap, toothpaste,
and other basic necessities.
Some argued the
president's tweet amounted to an admission that his administration is deliberately
creating appalling conditions at detention facilities along the southern border
in an effort to deter migrants entering the United States.
In a series of earlier tweets on Wednesday, Trump
praised Border Patrol for doing a "great job" as the agency comes under fire for a secret Facebook group in
which current and former officials made violent and xenophobic comments about
members of Congress and migrants.
Trump also attempted to justify the squalid
conditions at detention facilities by claiming they are "far better"
and "far safer" than the environment migrants fled.
"It's hard to
overstate the level of venality and depravity this man is capable of,"
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post wrote in response to the president's
tweets.