Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) trashed the agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as “human rights” violators just days after she voted to continue funding the agency.
During an interview with MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow, the self-described socialist congresswoman accused ICE agents of international human rights violations:
The one thing the president has not talked about is the fact he has systematically engaged in the violation of human rights on our border. He has separated children from their families. He talked about what happened the day after Christmas, on the day of Christmas, a child died in ICE custody. The president should not be asking for more money to an agency that has systematically violated human rights. [Emphasis added]
The president should be really defending why we are funding such an agency when right now what we are seeing is death. Right now what we are seeing is the violation of human rights. These children and families are being held in basically freezing boxes that no person should be maintained in for any amount of time let alone the amount of time they are being kept. [Emphasis added]
Less than a week ago, though, Ocasio-Cortez voted in support of a Continuing Resolution for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to keep funding ICE and U.S. Border Patrol at current levels.
The vote was a break from Ocasio-Cortez’s infamous campaign to “abolish ICE,” whereby House and Senate Democrats plotted to end all immigration enforcement last year.
Polls conducted following Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign to abolish ICE revealed that a majority of Democrats, 60 percent, oppose abolishing the federal agency. About 70 percent of all American voters and 73 percent of swing voters said they oppose Ocasio-Cortez’s abolish ICE plan.
If Ocasio-Cortez had her way and ICE had been abolished five years ago, back in 2013, there would have been at least 1.64 million illegal aliens — many of whom are convicted criminals — released into U.S. neighborhoods and communities rather than being deported, as Breitbart News reported.
Last year, alone, ICE agents arrested over 6,600 convicted murderers and convicted sex offenders who were in the United States illegally.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.