Let her speak
Ocasio-Cortez Calls Migrant Detention Centers 'Concentration Camps,' Eliciting Backlash
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her use of the phrase "concentration camps" to refer to migrant detention centers was intentional.
WASHINGTON Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal freshman Democrat from New York who has made fighting for immigrants' rights a signature issue, on Tuesday described the Trump administration's border detention facilities as "concentration camps," provoking backlash from Republicans who said she was minimizing the Holocaust.
"This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, amplifying comments she had made on her Instagram feed on Monday night.
"This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis," she added, citing an article in Esquire magazine that quoted a historian of the Holocaust who lectures at the University of Virginia. In the article, the historian, Waitman Wade Beorn, said, "Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz."
But the invocation of Nazi imagery to describe the administration's handling of immigrants and refugees set off a furor in Washington. Although not all Nazi concentration camps were death camps some were forced labor camps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's use of the phrase, which she said was intentional, opened the door for attacks from Republicans, led by Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the sharp-tongued chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
"Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history," Ms. Cheney wrote on Twitter. "6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this."
Representative Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, who is Jewish, called for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to "stop trying to draw these crayon parallels between POTUS & Hitler!"
But Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, chimed in to support Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Nadler, who is Jewish, tweeted: "One of the lessons from the Holocaust is 'Never Again' - not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don't callout such inhumanity right in front of us."
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's comments come as debate over American policy toward Israel and how to respond to anti-Semitism is roilingCongress in general and the Democratic Party in particular. Democrats voted this year to condemn all forms of hatred, including anti-Semitism, after a charged debate over Representative Ilhan Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, who invoked what many said were anti-Semitic tropes in talking about supporters of Israel.
Whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's remarks will generate widespread pushback in the Democratic caucus was not immediately clear on Tuesday; many lawmakers were still traveling back to Washington after a long weekend. J Street, the progressive pro-Israel advocacy group, defended the congresswoman.
Ocasio-Cortez Calls Migrant Detention Centers 'Concentration Camps,' Eliciting Backlash
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her use of the phrase "concentration camps" to refer to migrant detention centers was intentional.
WASHINGTON Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal freshman Democrat from New York who has made fighting for immigrants' rights a signature issue, on Tuesday described the Trump administration's border detention facilities as "concentration camps," provoking backlash from Republicans who said she was minimizing the Holocaust.
"This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, amplifying comments she had made on her Instagram feed on Monday night.
"This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis," she added, citing an article in Esquire magazine that quoted a historian of the Holocaust who lectures at the University of Virginia. In the article, the historian, Waitman Wade Beorn, said, "Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz."
But the invocation of Nazi imagery to describe the administration's handling of immigrants and refugees set off a furor in Washington. Although not all Nazi concentration camps were death camps some were forced labor camps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's use of the phrase, which she said was intentional, opened the door for attacks from Republicans, led by Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the sharp-tongued chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
"Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history," Ms. Cheney wrote on Twitter. "6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this."
Representative Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, who is Jewish, called for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to "stop trying to draw these crayon parallels between POTUS & Hitler!"
But Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, chimed in to support Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Nadler, who is Jewish, tweeted: "One of the lessons from the Holocaust is 'Never Again' - not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don't callout such inhumanity right in front of us."
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's comments come as debate over American policy toward Israel and how to respond to anti-Semitism is roilingCongress in general and the Democratic Party in particular. Democrats voted this year to condemn all forms of hatred, including anti-Semitism, after a charged debate over Representative Ilhan Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, who invoked what many said were anti-Semitic tropes in talking about supporters of Israel.
Whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's remarks will generate widespread pushback in the Democratic caucus was not immediately clear on Tuesday; many lawmakers were still traveling back to Washington after a long weekend. J Street, the progressive pro-Israel advocacy group, defended the congresswoman.
