Watch: Ocasio-Cortez Blasts Trump over ICE Funding... Days After She Voted To Fund ICE
Far-left Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted President Donald Trump for funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday, but she voted to continue funding the agency just one week ago.
Ocasio-Cortez made her highly critical comments against ICE on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” after Trump’s Oval Office address Tuesday night.
Trump’s address was focused on the crisis at the southern border and illegal immigration, which ICE is charged with policing.
ICE has been under fire from Democrats in recent months over concerns about the treatment of illegal immigrants.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed that ICE has “systematically violated human rights” and questioned why the agency received any funding at all.
“The president should really be defending why we are funding such an agency at all. Because right now, what we are seeing is death. Right now, what we are seeing is the violation of human rights,” Ocasio-Cortez told Maddow.
WATCH: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivers impassioned response to President Trump’s address: “The president should be really defending why we are funding [ICE] at all … right now, what we are seeing, is death.” pic.twitter.com/4Al4GLWUvB
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 9, 2019
In reality, Trump and other Republicans have made great arguments for border security and the continued existence of ICE.
In his Oval Office address, Trump highlighted the effectiveness of the agency since his administration began.
“In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records — including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killings,” Trump said.
Here are the facts: In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records—including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killings. #SecureOurBorder pic.twitter.com/FMf1jDbkqN
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 9, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez should be the last person to question why ICE continues to receive funding because the House of Representatives is in charge of the country’s purse.
In fact, Ocasio-Cortez herself voted to continue funding ICE.
On Jan. 3, the day she was sworn into Congress, Ocasio-Cortez joined every other Democrat in the House to vote “aye” on H.J. Res. 1.
The intention of the bill was to continue funding the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2019.
Ocasio-Cortez should probably know that ICE is one of the agencies under the jurisdiction of the DHS.
We should be worried if the left-wing representative is so ignorant to the fact that she is responsible for voting to fund ICE.
But we should be equally concerned if Ocasio-Cortez was simply being dishonest in her MSNBC appearance.
There are no other possible explanations for the representative’s comments. She’s either ignorant or dishonest.
No matter how you cut it, there are no excuses for Ocasio-Cortez’s attack on ICE because she voted to fund the agency just one week ago.
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