Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) says President Joe Biden’s opening of detention centers along the United States-Mexico border “is not okay.”
This week, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) opened a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas that will hold up to 700 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) between the ages of 13 and 17. The UACs will stay at the 66-acre site until they are released into the U.S. interior to be placed with sponsors, who are oftentimes illegal alien family members.
Days after Biden took office, DHS officials moved forward with plans to construct and open a processing center in Donna, Texas, near the Rio Grande Valley Sector’s existing processing center.
Biden, in August 2019, said, “Close them down!” and “We don’t need them” when talking about border detention facilities that President Trump’s administration had utilized to control migration.
In a series of statements, Ocasio-Cortez — who once compared border detention facilities to “concentration camps” in 2019 — denounced the Biden administration for opening the facilities and said DHS “shouldn’t exist.”
“This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay — no matter the administration or party,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in reference to the Carrizo Springs facility.
“It’s only [two months] into this admin and our fraught, unjust immigration system will not transform in that time,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “That’s why bold reimagination is so [important]. DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganized, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status & more.”
This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay – no matter the administration or party. https://t.co/AEV7s7QQnB
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2021
It’s only 2 mos into this admin & our fraught, unjust immigration system will not transform in that time.
That’s why bold reimagination is so impt.
DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganized, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status & more.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2021
As Breitbart News reported in May 2020, Ocasio-Cortez told Democrat voters that they needed to support Biden against Trump in the presidential election because “we have had kids in cages.”
“I think right now just the stakes are too high when it comes to another four years of Trump … and it’s, you know, for a lot of communities, this is an issue of life and death. We have had kids in cages,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed.
In 2019, Biden promised Democrat lawmakers that he would close border detention facilities that hold UACs, but now his administration is defending their opening of more. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was quick to declare that the new Carizzo Springs facility will be closed eventually.
“This is not kids being kept in cages,” she said. “This is a facility that was opened that is going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities.”
In January, border apprehensions increased nearly 160 percent compared to the same time last year. More than 75,000 border crossers were apprehended last month, which is the highest number of border crossers in the month of January since 2006. Thousands more likely entered the U.S. illegally, undetected by federal immigration officials.
The surge of illegal immigration to the U.S. comes as Biden has ended the “Remain in Mexico” policy — which effectively eliminated Catch and Release — and has thrown out cooperative asylum agreements with Central America. The result has been that thousands of border crossers are now being released into the U.S. interior, without having to be tested for the Chinese coronavirus.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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