Inside the Cover-Up at the Border: What You Need to Know

Members of Congress reportedly covered up a growing health crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the owner of a sanitation company supplying portable bathrooms at the request of Border Patrol.

Tricia Elbrock, head of Elbrock Water Systems in Animas, New Mexico told the Washington Examiner that shortly after delivering two port-o-potties her cleaning staff was “overwhelmed” by the hundreds of migrants who used them. (Washington Examiner)
 

“There’s a crisis here — the influx of people. These little counties and towns cannot handle that mass,” Elbrock said during a recent meeting at her business in Animas. She also fears the number of migrants using the bathrooms is a hazard. “There’s a health issue with the porta-potties.”

Last month, an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s base in Antelope Wells, N.M., forced officials to close an indoor bathroom that migrants had been using. Officials allowed migrants access to that bathroom in the hopes of avoiding a bigger mess around their headquarters that would have been unavoidable had no bathroom been available.

Elbrock dropped off two portable toilets, but said two wasn’t nearly enough. She said one is appropriate for 10 to 15 people and that the Border Patrol should have asked for 15 based on how they were used. “That facility can’t handle that many people. They’re gonna be overwhelmed,” Elbrock said.

Four days after dropping off those portable toilets, the base asked her company for an emergency cleaning because lawmakers from Washington were coming to look at Antelope Wells and Lordsburg, N.M., the following day. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus wanted to see the conditions of facilities where a young Guatemalan girl who died of sepsis on Dec. 7 had visited.

Elbrock, concerned about her employees’ health, paid for them to get Hepatitis shots and have protective suits.