'Ice bae' Latina border patrol officer, a registered Democrat voter, brushes off social media attacks: ‘Thanks for seeing how difficult my job can be'
The Latina border patrol officer, dubbed as "Ice Bae" on social media for her good looks, has been revealed as a registered Democrat voter from Texas, according to reports. The female officer received unprecedented attention this weekend after her picture with Vice President Mike Pence at a migrant detention center in Texas became viral on Twitter.
The officer's viral image shows her standing outside an overcrowded holding cell as Pence walks around. The Vice President visited the McAllen, Texas detention center on Friday, 12 July.
The woman, identified as Kiara Cervante, set up a Twitter account on Sunday to respond to the appreciation and gained nearly 23,000 followers in around 24 hours. Cervante's Twitter account has now garnered nearly 50,000 followers in just three days.
Cervante, in her first Twitter post, wrote: "Soooo it's crazy.... but here I am. I'm hearing something about a viral picture. I would like to say i was just doing my job.. providing security for the visit of @VP. It was an honor and I take a lot of pride in my job!"
Reports state that Cervante registered as a Democrat in 2011, however, her voter records show that she did not exercise her right to vote in the 2016 presidential election. The officer last voted in March 2014, according to the Daily Mail.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency, on Tuesday (16 July), confirmed that the officer was free to use social media for her own personal use as long as she complied with CBP's code of conduct.
"CBP does not restrict employees from participating in social media for personal use," an official told the New York Post in an email. "As we have previously said, CBP employees are held to the highest expectation of conduct, both on and off duty and must adhere to CBP's standards of conduct."
Cervante had posted a selfie in her CBP uniform, but the picture was later removed from the social media. It could be because the image did not adhere to the agency's standard of conduct. The officer, however, has posted two more videos to her Twitter account since.
The officer, with her newfound fame, also faced some backlash as many critics slammed the attention she was getting in light of recent outrage over the separation of migrant families and ill-treatment of children in similar detention centers.
After one user commented on her picture, calling the cell seen behind her a "concentration camp," the officer responded by saying: "This station in particular isn't meant to be a holding facility hence the overpopulation of aliens. We are doing our best but some people won't ever understand. They don't know the daily of what my job consists of.. But thank you for seeing how difficult my job can be… Not only because I am Latina but just in general the mass amount of people crossing ILLEGALLY daily and the processing can take a toll on anyone of any gender and any race."
Cervante, on Tuesday, told her followers that she wants something positive to come out of this, advising young girls to "work hard and get an education," and implored people to be "respectful, kind and humble."
"I am a very respectful person, a very kind person, I don't let the negativity get to me," she tweeted. "Even in this day and age of social media, it's crazy, you have people tagging you from everywhere and somehow still I just don't let it... it doesn't faze me."