Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York argued against the political rhetoric on immigration from the Trump administration in an alarmist speech in Congress.
The congresswoman accused the administration of betraying the campaign promise to focus on deporting illegal aliens with criminal records in the speech Tuesday. She also claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeted 6-year-olds in her district.
‘That myth, that ideology, is that our immigrant neighbors are our enemies and more dangerous than us.’
“President Trump ran on a promise to the American people that ICE would go after the worst of the worst. … What we have seen is that ICE is not overwhelmingly going after criminals,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“In fact, over 70% of people currently detained in detention facilities do not have a criminal record,” she added. “So, who are they going after? They are going after 6-year-olds in my district. They are going after students and permanent residents for their political views. They are going after Americans born and raised in the United States. And time and time again Trump has floated taking away citizenship from U.S. citizens based on their ethnicity.”
Ocasio-Cortez might have been referring to an incident where a 6-year-old was reportedly picked up by ICE in Queens along with her mother and deported to Ecuador.
AOC went on to attack the immigration “myth” she accused the administration of advocating.
“That myth, that ideology, is that our immigrant neighbors are our enemies and more dangerous than us,” she continued. “And they sustain that myth because if everybody believes it, they can get away with robbing all of us.”
She then accused Republicans of taking funding from food assistance, health care, and other social services in order to funnel it to ICE, which she called a “secret police program.”
While immigration activists have demanded that all enforcement efforts end, some Democrats have settled on the messaging that President Donald Trump’s deportation policies are too extreme.
RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez gets hammered over embarrassing mistake she made at CNN town hall
Ocasio-Cortez is believed by some to be positioning herself to run for even higher office, and some are calling for her to run for president in 2028.
If she decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she could challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is up for re-election in 2028.
Her ambitions have been criticized by many on the far left who accuse her of abandoning her extremist base in order to widen her appeal to moderates and centrists of the party.
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