Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended a fellow Democrat who argued in a Wednesday hearing that the deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody were “intentional.”
“Yesterday, GOP moved to silence Lauren Underwood’s words bc she had the audacity to say the obvious: that stealing children away from their parents, trafficking, & caging them w/o end is intended to do harm,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “They tried to silence her; make her back down. She didn’t. Be proud.” (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez And Warren Express Disappointment Over Female Lead In ‘GoT’ Ending)
Yesterday, GOP moved to silence Lauren Underwood’s words bc she had the audacity to say the obvious: that stealing children away from their parents, trafficking, & caging them w/o end is intended to do harm.
They tried to silence her; make her back down.
She didn’t.
Be proud ???????? https://t.co/3KRRCxGPap— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 23, 2019
Underwood, a Democrat representative from Illinois, had claimed a day earlier that Republicans, and specifically the Trump administration, had intentionally chosen a policy that they knew would result in harm or death to migrant children.
Rep. @LaurenUnderwood: “With 5 kids that have died, 5,000 separated from their families, I feel like the evidence is really clear that this is intentional. It’s intentional, and it’s a policy choice being made on purpose by this administration.” https://t.co/C5Doo7vn96 pic.twitter.com/WeNzCGOFVY
— The Hill (@thehill) May 22, 2019
What neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Underwood acknowledged was the fact that the family separation policy had been adopted in part to reduce the trafficking of children, and neither mentioned the hundreds of children who had been removed from adults who were not actually their parents or even relatives, some of whom had been “rented” in order to help a single adult gain entry to the U.S. more easily.
Additionally, neither brought up the fact that the detention centers — the cages they referenced — were also in use during the administration of former President Barack Obama.