Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a town hall in her district on Saturday, when she criticized her own party over immigration policy, dubbed former President George Bush a radical, and suggested the backwards bumpkins in middle America are unjustifiably fearful of migrants flooding into their communities.
AOC opened the meeting by touting interpreters for seven different languages, then shifted to focus on her efforts to decriminalize border crossings, and to break up the Department of Homeland Security created under President Bush.
“When people say, ‘oh, you want to talk about dismantling DHS or abolishing ICE, all of these things are such radical agendas,’” she told the audience of about 200. “First of all, I think reorganizing and getting rid of DHS is not as radical as George Bush’s implementation and creation of DHS in the first place.”
The consolidation of several agencies under one department allowed President Trump to divert funding from disaster relief to provide help address the border crisis when Democrats in Congress refused to cooperation, and AOC believes it’s a travesty.
“It’s not that radical to say ‘maybe George Bush wasn’t right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s really not that radical.”
AOC’s vote in opposition to emergency funding for the border hinged on her distaste for mingling border security funding with humanitarian aid to migrants who cross the border illegally, she said.
The approved legislation included money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which means it’s a “border militarization bill,” she said.
“If we wanted a humanitarian bill, then we should have drafted a humanitarian only bill. I don’t think a humanitarian bill includes ICE, and I don’t think it includes CBP,” AOC said, adding that “I got heat from my own party for making that point.”
“If it’s not a humanitarian bill, don’t call it a humanitarian bill,” she said. “It’s a border militarization bill.”
AOC alleged evil corporations are cashing in on Wall Street “every time they cage a kid, and I won’t vote for that.”
The socialist told the town hall that regardless of what laws are in place, “it’s difficult having Trump as president … because they don’t follow the law.”
“Frankly, this is why the president must be impeached, by the way,” she said. “Because he doesn’t follow the law and his job is to follow the law.”
Her solution is to create special “9/11 style commissions” to investigate several alleged abuses by the president, from child separations at the border to disaster response in Puerto Rico. The U.S. is indebted to children separated from their parents at the border, and taxpayers are obligated to give those children free mental health care for “the rest of their lives,” she said.
“I believe we have the responsibility to provide mental health care services to those children for the rest of their lives because … we have created damage that could last the rest of people’s lives,” she said. “It just goes to show how a stroke of a pen from this administration can damage thousands of people’s lives almost permanently.”
Democrats, particularly those in the middle of the country, are part of the problem too, AOC argued, and many Democrats representing them aren’t inclined to support her perspective immigration because they listen to their constituents.
“The daily work is political. The daily work, frankly, is trying to convince folks in swing seats that they won’t lose their seat over immigration policy,” she said. “Even if you elect a fully Democratic (government) that doesn’t mean that immigration policy is going to change.”
“I can’t get people in my own party to not send troops to the border,” she said. “The reason for that is fear based and it has to do with folks in other parts of the country believing certain things about immigration.”
AOC alleges immigration is “really the freedom to be,” and unlike Jackson Heights in Queens, the majority of America hasn’t “figured it out,” she said.
“If we figured it out, the country can figure it out,” AOC said. “But there is a lot of fear and it’s an intentional stoking of fear around those who are different.
“What will happen to me if someone else comes into my neighborhood?” she mocked. “A lot of other communities in the country are struggling with that idea as somehow your identity changes with the presence of another.
“It’s unsurprising that the states that are the furthest away from migrant centers, or have the lowest immigrant populations, have the most anti-immigrant sentiment,” AOC alleged, “because they have not experienced the blessing that it is to have an immigrant community.”
Many of AOC’s comments came in response to questions from the audience. The congresswoman took questions from the media after the main event, when she promised strict oversight over the 2020 census, promoted a strategy for Democrats to win in rust belt states by shifting the conversation about immigration, and repeatedly attacked Trump.
“We can change our positions on immigration as a country,” she said. “And on top of that, we don’t have to acquiesce to the president’s racism because he is using racism. He is stoking white supremacy and he’s allowing … neo-Nazi groups to go off unchecked because that is a key part of rousing his base.”
“When we turn out Detroit, when we turn out Baltimore, when we turn out Minneapolis … and suburban areas and rural areas that are getting completely fleeced by this president too, he’s a fraud and we need to tell that story and we can win,” AOC said.
She also took a swipe at Trump for allegedly failing to quell his supporters chanting “send her back” during a recent rally.
“Men like him have been telling women like me to go back to my own country for a long time,” she alleged. “It’s the fact of what he’s telling every person in this room and in rooms like this across the country.”
“He’s doing this intentionally,” AOC said. “I do think it’s important that with that chant, what he told this country is that he doesn’t want to be president anymore.
“Because he wants to pick and choose who he’s president to and that’s not a president at all,” she alleged.
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