Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused people describing the situation at the southern border as a “surge” of engaging in rhetoric with ties to white supremacy.
The New York lawmaker spoke out about the increased number of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border in an Instagram Live video Tuesday night after a user asked her why she wasn’t “addressing the border crisis and the kids in cages like you used to.”
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Ocasio-Cortez went into a long explanation, detailing how the description of the increased migrants as a “surge” is “trying to invoke a militaristic frame,” which she said is “a problem,” adding, ”This is not a surge. These are children, and they are not insurgents, and we are not being invaded.”
“Which, by the way, is a white supremacist philosophy. The idea that if another is coming in the population, that this is an invasion of who we are,” the congresswoman said.
Rather than refer to the situation as a “border crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez said it would be more apt to describe the situation as “an imperialism crisis, it’s a climate crisis. It’s a trade crisis. And also, it’s a carceral crisis.”
“So, those are some of the problems. What about the solutions?” she asked. “Well, No. 1, our solutions need to be rooted in foreign policy because our interventionist history in foreign policy and history, over decades destabilizing regions, drive people to migrate, but people don’t want to have that conversation.”
Ocasio-Cortez was a vocal opponent of the previous administration’s immigration policies and traveled to the border. During a June 2018 visit to a detention center, the congresswoman said, “The child detention camps are here. I confronted the border officers myself. Using their names, I told them exactly what they are responsible for. One of them made eye contact with me. I spoke directly to him. I saw his sense of guilt. We can dismantle this.”
The congresswoman has long called for the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
She did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
The uptick in migrants encountered at the border has increased during the Biden administration, but its defenders note that the data show the increase began during the end of the Trump administration. At the same time, Republicans have been quick to attack President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Some migrants point to the change in White House policies, notably Biden’s reversal of former President Donald Trump’s policy of returning unaccompanied minors to Mexico, as the impetus for their journeys to the border.
Another aspect believed to be a part of the influx is the Biden administration’s reversal on the Trump policy that migrants seeking asylum must remain in Mexico while their cases are heard.
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While there were more than 100,000 migrants that were encountered at the border last month, and it was the highest since the summer of 2019, there were nearly 70,000 encounters reported each month between October 2020 and January 2021.
