It’s not exactly breaking news when AOC says something indefensible, but she outdid herself in an Instagram video last night by calling U.S. immigration facilities at the border “concentration camps”:
Ocasio-Cortez falsely claims Trump is operating concentration camps, compares the situation to the Holocaust: “The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are. … ‘Never Again’ means something … we need to do something about it” pic.twitter.com/F2MmZ8y2dT
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 18, 2019
Her defense was that “concentration camps” is a simply a term for facilities holding masses of people without trial. But it’s obviously pejorative, and she made it clear what she meant during the video when she invoked the phrase “never again.”
This is a ridiculous smear at every level: We obviously aren’t rounding up people and sending them to these camps, but temporarily holding people who are coming over the border illegally of their own volition. Yes, the facilities are badly over-taxed, but Congress could alleviate the situation immediately by appropriating more resources. The migrants aren’t being held in the absence of due process, but in many cases at the beginning of a long asylum process. Finally, they aren’t being held for the duration, but are released into the country in fairly short order, likely never to be removed.
This system is so permissive it has created an enormous incentive for more and more Central American family units to come. To suggest that there is anything immoral about this, let alone to associate it with some of the worst acts of repression in modern history or even with Nazi death camps is such a profound and grievous error that it would be shocking coming from anyone besides AOC.