Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says “if people want to come, they have to come correct.”
It’s essentially the same message routinely used by President Donald Trump and many other conservatives advocating for a real solution to the ongoing crisis of illegal immigrants flooding across the southern border.
“Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways,” Trump said at his recent State of the Union address.
“I want people to come into our country,” he said, “but they have to come in legally.”
The nation’s youngest Congresswoman’s wasn’t discussing immigration, however, but rather her thoughts on Amazon abandoning plans to construct its headquarters in her home state. Ocasio-Cortez complained that Amazon was attempting to circumvent the established procedures for businesses coming into the community, and the same logic apparently doesn’t apply to immigrants coming into America.
“Instead of them even trying to have a negotiation process, they just took their ball and left,” the lawmaker said of Amazon. “That’s not our fault. That’s Amazon’s fault. Amazon decided to be a punk.”
Ocasio-Cortez made the comments during a 9 a.m. Instagram Live feed in her leisure attire as she sipped coffee in her sparsely decorated D.C. apartment, which she described as her “monastery with no furniture.” The broadcast is the latest in a string of similar online videos that have helped to cement Ocasio-Cortez’s status as the Democrat Party’s leading socialist darling by blending her candid thoughts on politics with her transition to Congress.
On Friday’s episode, the representative from New York’s 14th congressional district sat on the floor with a lamp and a laptop, ranting about Amazon, President Trump’s border wall, and the culture shock of living in D.C., where “people are way creepier.”
“In the Bronx it’s this thing snitches get stitches, you don’t talk about other people’s business. The default is to keep things to yourself,” she said. “Here in D.C., it’s so weird, like, everybody is like, a spy.
“Like, it’s so bizarre. It’s like, you could go out to get a cup of coffee and the person that’s like sitting at table in the corner of the restaurant’s like,” she said, mimicking a “spy” typing on a keyboard.
“You know, like, then they go and like text all their friends that they saw so-and-so in this cafe, it’s like triangulation, and it’s super weird,” Cortez said, “It’s just like super weird.”
It’s difficult, she said, because she’s a big shot now.
“I went from no one caring who I was, unless I was swiping my metro card too slow, to someone everyone knows,” she said.
The 29-year-old answered questions from several folks who chimed in on Instagram, alleging there’s no perks to serving in Congress, other than a large salary and “not shitty insurance.”
“I think everybody should have the insurance I have and that’s just the way it should be,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The lawmaker said she voted against a budget Friday to avoid a government shutdown based on principle, though it’s unclear what exactly the principle was.
“I can’t vote for a wall,” she said, clarifying moments later that the budget wasn’t a vote on a wall.
“I think it’s a moral abomination. I think it’s like the Berlin wall,” she continued, alleging “70 percent of the American people think this is the dumbest idea ever.”
“It’s not my problem the majority of the American people think it’s a scam, a sham, a monument to white supremacy,” Ocasio-Cortez went on. “It’s not my fault.”
The congresswoman also called for the immediate termination or resignation of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.
“She needs to be fired,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Children are dying in her care.”
She explained Republicans “just don’t care” and alleged Trump’s decision to declare an emergency to construct a border wall is “stealing money” from Puerto Rico and California.
Much of the discussion was focused on Amazon, with Ocasio-Cortez at one point likening CEO and founder Jeff Bezos to a shady coat hustler on the street.
“For those of you who don’t know about the actual deal, you should know that New York City was getting totally screwed with this Amazon deal,” Ocasio-Cortez said, likening the deal to recruit a Foxconn plant in Wisconsin.
“We were, like, on paper giving helipads. We were, like, renaming creeks. We were providing, like, hard tangible tax breaks for very little on the paper in return,” she said. “The process was designed to skip every community process.”
“That’s not how our country works. … If people want to come, they’ve to come correct. Period,” she said. “They’ve got to come correct into communities.”
“I’m not going to just knock on the door of your house and say this is mine now,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“If I just walk up to you on the street and say, ‘hey, if you give me twenty bucks, I promise I’m gonna come back – I’m gonna leave but I gonna promise I’m gonna come back and give you a really nice coat. But I need to leave, I need to take your twenty bucks first, it’s not going to happen at once,’” she said. “You’d be like, ‘you’re crazy, no, get out of my face.’”
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