Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, explained during a CNN interview Wednesday that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compared the migrant detention centers to concentration camps because she has a different “usage” and “perception” of words.
“With all due respect to her, she has a different usage of words, maybe a different perception. I live at the border, I’ve been to those detention centers, I’ve been to those shelters, as you know. There are adults in detention centers, but if they’re children, they are put in shelters that are run by nonprofits,” Cuellar said.
“I would not use the terms that she used and imply anything else after that,” he added.
Ocasio-Cortez is not apologizing for the remarks she made on Monday, despite calls from congressional Republicans and others.
What’s worse, Congress has asked DHS for documents on the whereabouts of children taken from their parents.
We‘ve asked for details & records on camp conditions.
DHS has refused to cooperate or provide Congress w/ the requested information.
Why doesn’t that concern @HouseGOP?
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 19, 2019
Jewish groups and Holocaust museums have also called out Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks.
“We are deeply disturbed by the language used in your recent Instagram live video which seeks to equate the detention centers on America’s southern border with Nazi-era Concentration Camps,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York wrote in a letter. “The terms ‘Concentration Camp’ and ‘Never Again’ are synonymous with and evocative of the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, in which 6 million European Jews were systematically denied civil and human rights due to their race and ultimately murdered in a state-sponsored genocide.”
