Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tweeted at Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that she should visit the U.S. Holocaust Museum to educate herself about the differences between Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and the migrant caravan trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted that the migrants — whom she prefers to call “asylum-seekers,” though few would qualify — should receive the same consideration that Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany received during the Holocaust.
Asking to be considered a refugee & applying for status isn’t a crime.
It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany.
It wasn’t for targeted families fleeing Rwanda.
It wasn’t for communities fleeing war-torn Syria.
And it isn’t for those fleeing violence in Central America. https://t.co/qhv7Rr1itn— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 25, 2018
Ocasio-Cortez appeared not to understand that the U.S., under Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, infamously turned Jewish refugees away.
As the Washington Examiner‘s Tim Worstall noted (original emphasis):
What did actually happen to Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria? The U.S. maintained its strict controls on the number of migrants it would accept in those years up to entry into the war in 1941. There was also no difference made between simple migrants and refugees. Thus, with strict numerical controls on who could come, many couldn’t and thereby perished.
Actually, it was worse than this. One shipload on a ship named the St. Louis actually arrived but were sent back to Europe. Those who went back to mainland Europe then largely did die in the Holocaust. The U.S. took no part in the Kindertransport that saved tens of thousands of children (one of the finest TV clips you’ll ever see is on this subject) to the shame of the administration of the time, that of the great liberal President Franklin Roosevelt. It’s thought this resulted in 20,000 extra deaths.
Not knowing all this shows Ocasio-Cortez’s knowledge of history. Of course, after all of these events, we all had a look around the world and decided that we ought to do it differently. Which we do today, as apparently Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t know.
In response to Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Graham tweeted:
I recommend she take a tour of the Holocaust Museum in DC.
Might help her better understand the differences between the Holocaust and the caravan in Tijuana. https://t.co/05vCexiClE
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 26, 2018
Ocasio-Cortez never explained what “violence” the migrants in the caravan were fleeing that would compare to the genocide of Jews in Europe under Nazi Germany.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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