For quite some time, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had been silent regarding the overcrowded conditions for migrants at the US-Mexico Border. But last month, AOC made the move to describe President Joe Biden’s policies as “inhumane,” “horrifying,” “unacceptable,” and “barbaric.” She said that the fact this keeps happening is a failure of both political parties and has even given Biden a pass for excoriating former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Since then, Biden has put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of handling the border crisis…and things somehow got worse.
VP Harris has refused to visit the Border and even made matters worse for Democrats on a trip to Guatemala. She was first greeted at the airport by pro-Trump supporters holding signs that said “Trump Won” and “Kamala, Go Home.” Guatemala president Alejandra Giammattei even blamed the Biden Administration for the migrant surge at the border and made it clear that he and Harris are not on the same side of the coin regarding migration.
“We asked the United States government to send more of a clear message to prevent more people from leaving. The message changed too: ‘We’re going to reunite families, we’re going to reunite children,’” he said. “The very next day, the coyotes were here organizing groups of children to take them to the United States,” Giammattei said.
But VP Harris tried to recover from the damage and discourage migrants from making the journey. She said that there is a lack of economic opportunity for many in Guatemala and that it’s in the U.S interest to help create opportunity, even as she discouraged illegal immigration during her press conference with Giammattei.
“I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border. Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration,” VP Harris said.
She even warned migrants that if they come to our border, they will be turned back. She told people to discourage their friends, neighbors, and family members from embarking on what is otherwise an extremely dangerous journey. She mentions that “in large part” the only people who benefit are coyotes.
But that part didn’t sit well with AOC. She even took to a recent segment of MSNBC’s “All In” to talk about the Biden Administration’s immigration policies, which she called “inhumane” and said weren’t working. She criticized Harris’s warning to migrants and continued to talk about how bad the conditions are in Central America.
AOC said that the issue isn’t just about the vice president or Biden Administration, but the root of the immigration policies at large. She said this was a problem inherited by Donald Trump and Barack Obama, all the way back to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under George Bush.
“We cannot, as a country, no matter who it is, continue to show up in Latin America and say that this is their fault, or that they are to blame, right? Because this seems like almost a precursor to say — in saying that we are going to allege that you are coming to this country illegally, when seeking asylum on our border is, in fact, legal, and use that to pre-date any violence that we are willing to inflict on immigrants as a deterrent,” AOC said.
Democrats are clearly moving in the opposite direction as AOC and in listening to her influence the direction of their policies. The American people have seen the damage done and want nothing to do with Biden’s policies.
