Border official rejects AOC toilet-drinking charge, blames 'broken Spanish'

The government’s top border official emphatically refuted the claim that women were told to drink water out of toilets during the summer migrant surge, telling reporters on Tuesday that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s misleading assertion was the result of “broken Spanish.” “It’s absolutely false. It didn’t happen,” said Mark Morgan, acting commissioner at Customs and Border Protection. “There was broken Spanish being spoken.” The claim by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was one of the more explosive of the summer immigration debate. She made it after she and other members of Congress visited some of the border facilities built to hold about 4,000 people at any given time, but which held nearly 20,000 people at their peak in early June. The New York Democrat said detainees insisted they were ordered by agents to drink from toilets. Other lawmakers on the visit backed her claim. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez called directives to drink from toilets “psychological warfare” against migrants. Mr. Morgan, though, said the lawmakers misunderstood the migrant women in the conversation. They were pointing not at the toilet specifically, but at an integrated toilet and drinking fountain system, where both facilities are combined into one unit — though the water is not shared. “So when they were asked where do you get your water, they pointed over to where the combined toilet-water fountain was. They’re integrated in one modular unit, but completely separate,” Mr. Morgan said. “Hence the narrative got out there we were forcing them to drink from toilets. Absolutely 100% false.” He said he’s confident he has the right version of events because there were Border Patrol agents nearby and they saw the exchanges between the members of Congress and the migrants and overheard the conversations...MORE