A secret Facebook group for current and former US Border Patrol agents is filled with racist memes and posts mocking migrants, the nonprofit news site ProPublica reported on Monday.
Members of the group also posted derogatory comments about female Hispanic lawmakers, including US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The group, called “I’m 10-15,” was created in August 2016 and reportedly includes about 9,500 members, ProPublica said.
The Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody” is 10-15.
ProPublica published several examples of posts it said were found in the group.
For example, a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan who died in Border Patrol custody elicited comments such as “Oh well” and “If he dies, he dies.”
Other posts depicted fake photograph montages of Ocasio-Cortez engaged in sexual activity.
Ocasio-Cortez has been a frequent critic of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which oversees the Border Patrol, and she on Monday visited CBP border facilities housing migrants.
“There are 20,000 TOTAL Customs & Border Patrol agents in the US,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a message on Twitter linked to the ProPublica article.
“9,500 CBP officers sharing memes about dead migrants and discussing violence and sexual misconduct towards members of Congress,” she wrote. “How on earth can CBP’s culture be trusted to care for refugees humanely?”
US President Donald Trump, asked by reporters at the White House about the report on the agents’ Facebook group, said: “I don’t know what they are saying about members of Congress, but I know the Border Patrol is not happy with the Democrats in Congress.”
“The Border Patrol, they are patriots, they are great people, they love our country,” Trump said.
Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost denounced the posts.
“These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see — and expect — from our agents day in and day out,” Provost said. “Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.”
CBP said that it has launched an investigation after being “made aware of disturbing social media activity hosted on a private Facebook group that may include a number of CBP employees.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema