AOC: PURGE ‘SURGE’
Calls it a word of white racists
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has finally addressed the border crisis — but only to accuse anyone using the term “surge” of pushing “white supremacist” views.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-BronxQueens) has been accused of ducking the issue of the overcrowded migrant detention centers, despite saying they were akin to “concentration camps” under the Trump administration.
She appeared outraged when asked during an Instagram Live ask-me-anything session on Tuesday why she was “not addressing the border crisis and the kids in cages like you used to.
“Are you for real?” she asked the questioner. “It’s not a border crisis. It’s an imperialism crisis, it’s a climate crisis, it’s a trade crisis . . .
“But people don’t want to have that conversation. They want to say, ‘But what about the surge?’
“Well, first of all, just — gut check. Stop. Anyone who’s using the term ‘surge’ around you, consciously, is trying to invoke a militaristic frame,” she insisted.
“And that’s a problem, because 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 whitesupremacist philosophy. The idea that if another is coming in the population that this is an invasion of who we are.
“If you do want to zero in on the conditions of this moment,” she said, adding only a vague explanation of them reflecting problems with the US “carceral [prison] system” that “black and abolitionist organizers have already been talking about for a long time.”
In a virtual town hall Wednesday evening, AOC blasted the conditions at border facilities as “inhumane” -- and added that families separated during the Trump administration should be paid money for the experience.
“These families are owed reparations. Period,” she said.
Her claims quickly sparked outrage online, especially among those seeing the crisis firsthand, unlike AOC, who has yet to visit a border detention center.
“I’ve been using the term ‘surge’ because there’s a higher than usual amount of people illegally crossing into the US,” tweeted Marine vet Julio Rosas, reporting from the border for the conservative outlet Townhall.com. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes on a nightly basis for the past week.
“Yes, there are kids here, often by themselves. It’s emotionally taxing to see that night after night, because God only knows what they’ve been through.”
Rosas added in another tweet: “Funny how AOC raced down to TX for the winter storm, but she can’t be bothered to come down now to see what’s happening.”