Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday night slammed the overcrowded conditions for immigrants at the US-Mexican border under President Biden as “inhumane”, “horrifying,” “unnaceptable” and “barbaric.”
She also blamed decades of US foreign policy with countries in neighboring Central America as contributing to the perpetual crisis of desperate residents from poor, violence-torn countries flooding the border.
AOC unloaded on the border crisis during a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday night.
“The fact that this keeps happening is a political failure of both parties,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
AOC gave a detailed critique on the current border crisis — after being accused of giving Biden a pass after excoriating former President Trump’s border and immigration policies.
During an earlier interview, she criticized people who describe the situation at the border as a “surge” of pushing a “white supremacist” philosophy.
She had visited immigration detention centers in 2019 and decried the conditions under Trump as “concentration camps.”
Ocasio-Cortez said the slow processing and verification system at the border causes a “huge pile up” leading to “inhumane conditions” that “are wrong.”
While claiming Trump’s immigration policies are more harsh than Biden’s, she added, “I don’t want to excuse any of this.”
“We should be doing better by now,” she said.
At one point, she said families who were forcibly separated during the Trump years “are owed reparations. Period.”
She blamed US foreign policy for contributing to the border crisis.
“This is not an invasion. US foreign policy has contributed to the destabilization of these regions…where the children are fleeing …. We have decades of interventionist foreign policies that have contributed to this issue.”
“People don’t want to talk about it but then they want to act like this is brand new every time,” said of the masses overwhelming the border.
While she decried the current conditions at the border, she claimed Biden is trying to solve the problem.
“I’ve been in contact with the Biden Administration personally. What is different is they’re trying to figure out … how to find the resources to end his problem,” AOC said..
She said the border crisis could get worse if the US doesn’t address root causes through its foreign policy and trade and climate policies.
“The volume of these shifts are going to increase as droughts increase,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
