Speaking at the Netroots Nation convention in Philadelphia on Saturday, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley claimed black and brown people who work for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are “a cog” in the machine that perpetuates oppression and incarceration of people that “look just like them.”
Pressley is part of the ultra-liberal faction of the Democratic Party that is backed by political action committee Justice Democrats and often referred to as “The Squad.” The Squad also included Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, who have all been the subject of controversy in the House of Representatives after Speaker Nancy Pelosi chided them for criticizing more moderate Democrats in Congress.
Pressley was part of a group of Congress members who recently visited border immigration facilities in El Paso, Texas, and widely condemned detention centers housing unauthorized immigrants for being unsanitary and overcrowded. She later testified to the House Oversight Committee about her experience, which was sharply critical of border agents handling of the detention centers.
On Saturday, Pressley said that CBP agents she met on her recent trip to the border were resistant to the idea of abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She said, “What we learned in El Paso, and the reason why there was great resistance, and I learned a long time ago — it’s not that people are averse to change; they are resistant to loss. And I said, ‘What are folks so angry about? What do they think they will lose?’ Well, we found out in El Paso, because many of the families there, their only opportunity or pathway to social and economic freedom, to economic mobility, to the middle class, is to work for CBP.”
Of the backlash she faced for suggesting that border agencies be eliminated, Pressley said, “And people were angry at us, because we were taking away their neighbor’s jobs with our calls to abolish ICE and to not want to continue to feed a system that criminalizes people for doing something that is a legal and human right, and that is to seek asylum.”
Pressley said many of the border agents she met were minorities who perpetuated oppression by doing their job. “So disproportionately, black and brown people, because you don’t even need a high school diploma to be a CBP officer, their only pathway to the middle class is to work for CBP. And they are now a part of this larger machine, a cog, in the oppression and incarceration of people who look just like them,” the congresswoman said.
