Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., argued that if there is a problem with mass illegal immigration, Republicans are the ones to blame.
As Democrats continue to reel from the November election loss to now-President Donald Trump, some have argued the party needs a fresh approach to the migrant crisis plaguing the southern border. Others, like AOC, have urged citizens to find ways to resist the president and ICE agents’ efforts to deport illegal immigrants.
National Public Radio host Steve Inskeep spoke to the congresswoman, who won office initially during Trump’s first term, about where she and her party stand now.
“To what extent is immigration, as an issue, part of your problem with working-class voters?” he asked.
“I guess my question would be, what does the word ‘problem’ mean?” Ocasio-Cortez replied.
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“People voting for the other side and not for you,” Inskeep clarified.
“I think that we have a problem on immigration because of the lack of progress that we’ve had on this issue, and as we know, Republicans weaponize that lack of progress,” AOC replied. She then referred to the purportedly bipartisan bill that Republicans have argued was “never designed to solve the problem.”
“It is a problem not just for Democrats, it’s a problem for the entire country that Republicans do not want to solve,” Ocasio-Cortez argued.
She appeared to echo the argument that one of the best ways to curb illegal immigration is to make more immigration legal, such as by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, saying, “They are completely uninterested in addressing undocumented people, in addressing a path to citizenship-“
“Well they do want to address undocumented people by removing them, I mean that’s what the president is attempting now,” Inskeep interjected.
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Ocasio-Cortez argued that Republican legislation such as the Laken Riley Act guts due process, and that Republicans lack the very infrastructure they need to effectively deport people.
“So they are actually creating-it’s not even about creating a deportation pipeline, they are creating a private prison camp pipeline, so they are still creating pipelines to just increase this problem here in the United States,” she said.
Inskeep then asked the congresswoman why this issue continues to be a “political loser” for Democrats “if what you say is true.”
“I think that a lack of a path to citizenship in the United States, the lack of addressing comprehensive immigration reform creates a large population of undocumented people in the United States and that is allowed to be weaponized in many ways,” AOC replied.
“We have a large population of undocumented people in the US. Overwhelmingly, it is not because they crossed the southern border of the United States,” she continued. “It’s because they came here in a documented fashion and overstayed a visa and became undocumented. And it is the lack of ability for us to expand a path to citizenship, modernize paths to citizenship over decades that create this bubbling issue that Republicans are allowed to weaponize.”
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