Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) accused the Trump administration of stealing migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border as the self-avowed Democratic-socialist faces intense blowback for comparing border facilities to “concentration camps.”
Streaming live on Instagram Monday, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) laced into the Trump administration’s immigration policies, referring to President Donald Trump as a “fascist” whose administration is running “concentration camps” on the Southern border.
“That is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps,” the New York Democrat contended. “The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing and we need to do something about it.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) slammed Ocasio-Cortez remarks and urged her to learn “actual history” before opining on the subject.
“Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history,” Cheney tweeted. “6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this”:
After her controversial remarks garnered harsh criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill, the freshman lawmaker attempted to lecture her colleagues on the distinctions between concentration camps and death camps. “Concentration camps are considered by experts as ‘the mass detention of civilians without trial. And that’s exactly what this administration is doing,” she wrote on Twitter, sharing an Esquire magazine article in which an “expert” explains how border facilities are similar to concentration camps. ”
And for the shrieking Republicans who don’t know the difference: concentration camps are not the same as death camps.
Concentration camps are considered by experts as “the mass detention of civilians without trial.”
And that’s exactly what this administration is doing.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019
As Breitbart News reports:
Detention facilities are a far cry from both concentration camps and certainly from death camps. Detention facilities serve as a temporary holding place for illegal migrants – not U.S. citizens or civilians – while their claims and hearings are being processed. Additionally, detention centers provide another layer of security for the American people.
According to a report last week, ICE had to quarantine 4,200 migrant detainees for exposure to mumps, 800 for exposure to chicken pox, and 100 were quarantined for exposure to both.
The quarantine stretches across many of the 39 immigrant detention centers, where many await their deportation hearings.
Later Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez shared a June 2018 video of her at the Tornillo-Guadalupe port of entry gate, where she and others were protesting migrant children being separated from their parents after they were caught illegally entering the country under the administration’s strict zero-tolerance policy.
“This video was from 1 year ago this week – before my primary & the Fox News cycle,” she tweeted with the video. “I flew to the concentration camp where the Trump admin was keeping children they stole from their parents. Back then, I was voicing my conscience. I still am. #AbolishICE.”
This video was from 1 year ago this week – before my primary & the Fox News cycle.
I flew to the concentration camp where the Trump admin was keeping children they stole from their parents.
Back then, I was voicing my conscience. I still am. #AbolishICEpic.twitter.com/QLyc9MiMsV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019
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