Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been slammed after telling her supporters to stop calling the record number of migrants arr...
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been slammed after telling her supporters to stop calling the record number of migrants arriving at the border a 'surge', as it places the crisis in a 'militaristic frame'.
During a lengthy Instagram Live session on Tuesday night, AOC implored people to exercise caution with how they described the border crisis.
'They wanna say, 'But what about the surge?'' Well, first of all, just gut check, stop. Anyone who's using the term 'surge' around you consciously is trying to invoke a militaristic frame.'
'And that's a problem because this is not a surge, these are children and they are not insurgents and we are not being invaded, which by the way is a white supremacist idea-philosophy, the idea that if another is coming in the population that this is an invasion of who we are,' the congresswoman said.
Critics have labeled the comments 'peak AOC', and ridiculed her for not knowing the difference between the word 'surge' and 'insurgent'.
AOC told her massive Instagram following that the use of the word surge to describe the border crisis was placing the border crisis in a 'militaristic frame'
A family of migrants cross the Rio Bravo river to turn themselves in to U.S Border Patrol agents to request for asylum in El Paso, Texas, US, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 30
Tom Bevan, the co-founder of conservative political news site Real Clear Politics, said: 'Not knowing the difference between the meaning of 'surge' and 'insurgent' - and then using it as a talking point about white supremacy - is peak AOC.'
Journalist Tim Pool, who describes himself as a 'disaffected liberal' in his Twitter bio, posted: 'It's like no matter what happens she has some half-brained complaint that has nothing to do with what's going. 'Surge' is racist? What the f*** do you even do?'
And Fox News contributor Tom Homan said the people who know the situation best, Border Patrol, are calling it a surge.
He said: 'The men and women of the Border Patrol say it’s a surge. The men and women at the Border Patrol say it’s a crisis. The men and women of the Border Patrol know that these cartels are using these children and family units to drive them across the border and tie up their assets.
'This is a national security crisis. If [Ocasio-Cortez] can’t understand that or accept that, then she shouldn’t be in Congress at all.'
Approximately 16,000 minors crossed the southern border in March, a record high.
The influx of children is leading to a bottleneck at custody centers and makeshift facilities along the border.
There were 5,767 children in Customs and Border Protection custody on Sunday, up from 5,495 children on Thursday, according to CBP data. In June 2019, when Donald Trump was president, the highest number of unaccompanied minors in custody was around 2,600, according to CBP data.
Additionally, there are 11,886 children in the custody of Health and Human Services.
Combining the HHS and CBP figures, the Biden administration has more than 17,500 children in custody.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden's administration allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children for the first time, after weeks of shutting the media out and releasing their own photos.
The tour on revealed a severely overcrowded tent structure in Donna, Texas, where more than 4,000 migrants, including children and families, are crammed into pods.
The youngest are kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor for sleeping, because the facility is at 1,700% capacity and the dormitories are full.
Border guards say 14 per cent - roughly one in seven - of the migrant children have tested positive for COVID while photos also show detainees being treated for lice, amid fears of an outbreak.
Children are being crammed into the at the shelters like the one above, the Donna Department of Homeland Security, for weeks on end after a huge increase in March in the number of unaccompanied migrants
Media were allowed in to see the facilities this week, with shocking scenes like the one above at the Donna Department of Homeland Security holding facility (file photo)
Two thousand children have already overstayed their 72-hour legal limit and at least 39 have been stuck in the cramped quarters for two weeks.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection allowed two journalists from The Associated Press and a crew from CBS to tour the facility in the Rio Grande Valley.
Last week 18 GOP senators traveled to the border to see conditions firsthand and criticized the Biden administration's immigration policies.
Republicans argue Biden's decision to roll back many of Donald Trump's stricter border policies has led to the recent migrant surge.
Cruz posted photos of children being held in crowded conditions - many sleeping on the floor - in one of the shelter.
'Democrats like to pretend their open-borders policies are somehow humane,' Cruz told 'Fox News Sunday.'
AOC and several other progressive Democratic congresswoman lhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, refer to themselves as The Squad.
They were joined by Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri after the 2020 election.
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