Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. ‘Contributed’ to Immigration Crisis — Then We ‘Inflict’ Violence on Them

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In” that U.S. foreign, economic and trade policy helped contribute to conditions that led to people are “fleeing” from Central and South America.

Ocasio-Cortez said, “What we as a country, what the United States has not done is actually own up to the fact that we have contributed to regime change, destabilization and interventionist foreign policy that has contributed to these awful conditions throughout Latin America, and the reason that it’s a problem —this is not just U.S. supporting regime change— this is also climate policy that is impacting the global south disproportionately. Even though these farmers and folks in Central and South America contributed to climate change the least in terms of their carbon emissions. They are experiencing the ravages the most right now. And first. So U.S. climate policy has contributed to this. U.S. foreign policy, U.S. economic and trade policy has helped contribute to conditions that people are fleeing. We cannot, as a country, no matter who it is, continue to show up in Latin America and say that this is their fault or that they are to blame. Right?”

She added, “Because this seems like almost a precursor to say, in saying, that we are going to allege you are coming to this country illegally when seeking asylum on our border is, in fact, legal, and use that to predate any violence that we are willing to inflict on immigrants as a deterrent. This is policy that happened during the Trump administration, but I want to be clear that this is policy that happened during the Obama Administration as well. The caging of immigrants was very much documented, and it was asserted in many ways, and one with many of the other inhumane policies as a deterrent to say, you know, if we are cruel enough, maybe people will think twice before coming.”

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