During an Instagram Live video on Tuesday, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) said that “it doesn’t make sense” that federal agencies responsible for protecting the U.S. would be part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“And, by the way, ICE as an agency, as a structure, should not exist,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “DHS as an agency, the way it is currently organized, someone tell me why it makes sense, why FEMA and CBP and ICE and the Coast Guard should all be part of the same agency.”
In response to “uprisings”, Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez renews calls for abolishing DHS, ICE, CBPhttps://t.co/GB7JpnFVDG pic.twitter.com/0mlPy4PWNb
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 28, 2020
“It doesn’t make sense and, in fact, it’s incredibly dangerous when it’s structured that way,” she added.
“And so what’s happening is that, um, billions and billions of dollars have gone to ICE and CBP and as we’re talking about police uprisings in this country,” AOC continued, “I think it’s really important that people understand, do you know what is now the largest law enforcement organization in the United States of America?”
“It’s CBP. It’s Customs and Border Patrol,” she said. “It’s the largest law enforcement agency in the country.”
It should be noted that CBP does not stand for “Customs and Border Patrol” and that it actually stands for Customs and Border Protection.
FEMA, CBP, ICE, and the U.S. Coast Guard —the four agencies that AOC believes should not be organized together—all provide crucial protection of the American homeland.
casual 21 thousand people watching @AOC tear apart DHS and ICE but i captured this gem and wanted to share pic.twitter.com/seLCq3pHtZ
— camille ? (@CamiFleming) July 28, 2020
FEMA responds to natural disasters, CBP protects the U.S. border, ICE focuses on removing those who are in the U.S. illegally, and the Coast Guard protects America’s shores.
AOC also complained that illegal aliens have not received “extended unemployment.” She added:
“And what NYSYLC is doing is that they are fundraising for an emergency fund, um, to help some of those, to help some of our undocumented brothers and sisters out because one of the big issues that we have in our country is that the amount of race–, oh I have ice cream by the way, but, um, but the amount of xenophobia that we’re seeing especially with this administration, there is so much language that’s disrespecting undocumented people when the fact of the matter is they’re the ones who, these are the families and the individuals that are making sure that we’re fed.”
“They’re often taking care of our children,” she added.
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “we cannot go on” thinking illegal immigration is "wrong”https://t.co/fZIdZUoC4U pic.twitter.com/t5rTvJunMS
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 28, 2020
Ocasio-Cortez also said that breaking America’s immigration laws was not “wrong.”
She said, “They are often making sure that our work places and our homes are sanitary and so we cannot go on with kind of these xenophobic narratives that undocumented people are somehow wrong or, or just bad human beings when the fact of the matter is, is that, the scaffolding of American life is, so much of the scaffolding of American life is built upon the labor of undocumented people.”
This piece originally appeared in ThePoliticalInsider.com and is used by permission.
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