Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday warned a citizenship question on the 2020 Census could lead to abuse of those living here illegally.
“Unspeakable horrors have been executed in the United States in the name of citizenship,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting.
The panel convened to vote on citing Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross with contempt of Congress for refusing to provide the information that led to the decision to include a citizenship question in the Census.
Ocasio-Cortez said she does not trust the Supreme Court to decide whether to allow the question. The high court is poised to rule on the matter this summer.
Ocasio-Cortez said when she thinks of the Supreme Court, “I think of Dred Scott, I think of Korematsu.”
The Dred Scott case determined slaves were not citizens while the 1944 Korematsu ruling permitted the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to hold Japanese-American citizens in internment camps during World War II.
“They have gotten it wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The Supreme Court has gotten it wrong.”
A ruling in favor of keeping the citizenship question in the Census could lead to dire consequences for those living here illegally, Ocasio-Cortez suggested.
“With this Supreme Court argument, they could very well get it wrong again and I don’t want to think about how far that can be pushed,” she said.
