Ocasio-Cortez Denounces Trump’s Immigration Overreach on House Floor
Press Release
In New York City, there are at least five publicly reported cases of K-12 student arrests, deporting children as young as six years old.
Over 70 percent of people currently detained in detention facilities do not have a criminal record.
Washington, D.C. - Today, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) delivered the following remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives:
“Mr. Speaker,
President Trump ran on a promise to the American people that ICE would go after the “worst of the worst”.
Well, we’re now coming up on a year of this presidency, and I want to talk to the folks at home who feel disillusioned by what ICE is doing in our country.
Because what we have seen is that ICE is not overwhelmingly going after criminals.
In fact, over 70 percent of people currently detained in detention facilities do not have a criminal record.
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.
At every point, this administration has lied to us about ICE in America while some of the wealthiest actors in our country have tried to sell us a myth to defend it. Including private prison contractors.
And that myth, that ideology, is that our immigrant neighbors are our enemies and more dangerous than us.
And they sustain that myth, because if everybody believes it, they can get away with robbing all of us.
I want to remind you where the real crime is.
It’s in the oligarchs taking 170 billion dollars of our money from healthcare, and food assistance, and public programs - and taking that and funneling it into a secret police program.
It’s the authoritarians trying to create a black box because once it is established, they can put political dissidence inside of it.
But, their hatred is a story, a myth. And we can choose to reject it.
Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want you to believe that this is who we are as a country.
And we are here to say that it is not.
We are a country that has fought and defeated the Confederacy. That has defeated a history of civil rights violations, of secret police, of fascism.
We are a country guided by a monument to freedom on the waters of New York City, who shines brightly and welcomes “the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” to our shores.
So right now, I ask everyone in our country to fight for that ideal.
To fight for this legacy.
Thank you, and I yield back.”
President Trump promised to the American people that ICE would target the “worst of the worst”. Now, this past week, President Trump said that he would “absolutely” denaturalize certain Americans if he could.
In October, Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, Espaillat (NY-13), and Goldman (NY-10) led a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon expressing profound concern over the pattern of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting students across the country.
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