A new report from HuffPost has revealed some of the dehumanizing language that U.S. Border Patrol agents have used internally to malign migrants. The emails and text messages portray an agency infested with anti-immigrant bigotry — animus that has been fueled by conservative lawmakers and media figures.
As many Republicans falsely portray immigrants as violent invaders seeking to destroy American life, the report shows how Border Patrol agents — the tip of the spear when it comes to immigration enforcement — deploy similar bigotry on the job.
The report centers on the widespread use of a degrading word, “tonk,” to refer to migrants. The word’s origins are unclear, with some agents contending it began as an innocuous acronym — but many in the Border Patrol understand it to refer to “the sound made by slamming a heavy-duty flashlight or baton over a migrant’s head,” according to the report.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, HuffPost obtained several examples of border agents using the slur in recent years — including some in supervisory roles.
For instance:
An email sent by the watch commander for the Border Patrol’s Wellton Station in the Yuma Sector in Arizona carried the subject line ‘American TONK’ and the comment ‘The future…’ with a link to a news story about a brown-skinned woman with a Spanish surname breastfeeding her child at Disneyland.
And this:
A text chain between Border Patrol employees described migrants not just as ‘tonks’ but also as ‘an influx of rats’ from ‘whatamala, el salvado and hondodas.’ In another text chain, Border Patrol personnel mocked a co-worker for ‘marrying a tonk’ because ‘he cant find a legal chick here WOW.’
And this, too:
Photo files sent by email were often named ‘tonk.’ Subject lines and attached files contained terms including ‘assaultive tonk,’ ‘freezing tonk,’ ‘tonk phone’ and ‘familia tonk.’
Although this behavior is sick and deeply disturbing,…
Read the full article here
