Rep. Steve King Responds to AOC’s Border Facility Condemnation with Video of him Drinking from Toilet Fountain

Posted on by Ariyanna Smith, DI

Rep. Steve King of Iowa responded to criticism of border facilities with a video of him drinking from a toilet fountain in a migrant detention facility.

What We Know:

  • King posted the video on Twitter with the caption, “No way was @AOC objectively honest in her #FakeNews spin about the border. Click bait for Snowflakes!”

  • In July, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bashed the conditions at a border facility she visited in El Paso, Texas. Other officials continue to raise concerns over conditions at these facilities.
  • The congresswoman stated during her visit that she saw “people drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress. I brought it up to their superiors. They said ‘officers are under stress & act out sometimes.’ No accountability.”
  • United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet toured a facility earlier this year and stated, that she was “deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions.”
  • The device King filmed himself drinking from is commonly used in facilities housing detained immigrants. They are sinks attached to toilets similar to those found in prisons.

  • AOC slammed King’s video tweeting, “There is a genre of videos where GOP House members – who clearly didn’t read sworn testimony that detention sinks were broken- filming themselves drinking out of toilet sinks. They’re so anti-immigrant they risk pink eye to show off that they didn’t do the reading #CloseTheCamps.”
  • AOC stated that several of the sinks were actually broken and the detainees were told to drink from the toilet portion of the devices by guards. Therefore, King’s video fails to address her concerns. 

King did not get his point across this time.

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