News Opinons Politics

Fact Check: Ocasio-Cortez Says Democrats Must Rally Behind Biden Because ‘We Have Had Kids in Cages’

CLAIM: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said during an April appearance on The View that Democrats must rally behind Joe Biden (D), the Democrat Party’s presumptive nominee, because it is an issue of “life and death,” stating, “We have had kids in cages.”

VERDICT: The “cages” Democrats frequently refer to — chain-link enclosures in certain border facilities — were set up during the Obama-Biden administration, virtually diminishing one of the main reasons Ocasio-Cortez believes it is important for Democrats to support Biden.

Ocasio-Cortez appealed to the false left-wing talking point during an April 15 appearance on the The View in response to cohost Whoopi Goldberg, who asked the lawmaker, “Do you think it’s time to have a conversation with Joe?”


“Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think right now just the stakes are too high when it comes to another four years of Trump,” Ocasio-Cortez said, stating that her community “especially” has been impacted.

“And it’s, you know, for a lot of communities, this is an issue of life and death. We have had kids in cages,” she claimed, also criticizing the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.


HHS probes Minnesota’s use of billions in federal social service funds amid fraud concerns: report
Trump declares ‘Venezuelan regime’ a foreign terrorist organization, orders oil tanker blockade
Report: At Least 2 of the 5 Leftist New Year’s Eve Bombing Suspects Are Transgender
Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with two counts of first-degree murder in parents’ stabbing deaths
Trump Reduces Federal Workforce to Lowest Level in a Decade
Mark Kelly spars with Pete Hegseth in classified briefing
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to where we stand with a healthcare package
Trump says ‘fantastic’ Wiles was right to say he has ‘alcoholic’s personality’
201 House Dems vote against bill named after 20-year-old American killed by illegal immigrant teen
JD Vance Responds to Controversial Susie Wiles Interview: ‘Sometimes I Am a Conspiracy Theorist’
CBP officer fires weapon during road rage incident near JFK Airport entrance
Wiles panned Bondi’s ‘binders full of nothingness’ during Epstein files stunt
Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Issues Statement After Stunning D.C. with Friendly Fire Interview
Trump admin fights in court to keep White House East Wing demolition, $300M ballroom build on track
US and UK will need to offer a sweet deal for Jimmy Lai as China stands firm on conviction

See also  The most googled people in US for 2025

“I think it’s really important that we rally behind our Democratic nominee in November,” she added:

Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s insinuation, the “cages” she and her Democrat allies consistently refer to were constructed during the Obama-Biden administration — not President Trump’s. Even Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama-Biden administration, admitted that existing structures were not invented at the start of Trump’s term.

“Chain link barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them, were not invented on January 20, 2017, OK?” Johnson said during an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival last year, responding to the viral 2014 photo depicting the controversial holding facilities:

Johnson continued:

But during that 72-hour period, when you have something that is a multiple — like four times — of what you’re accustomed to in the existing infrastructure, you’ve got to find places quickly to put kids. You can’t just dump seven-year-old kids on the streets of McAllen or El Paso. And so these facilities were erected.


HHS probes Minnesota’s use of billions in federal social service funds amid fraud concerns: report
Trump declares ‘Venezuelan regime’ a foreign terrorist organization, orders oil tanker blockade
Report: At Least 2 of the 5 Leftist New Year’s Eve Bombing Suspects Are Transgender
Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with two counts of first-degree murder in parents’ stabbing deaths
Trump Reduces Federal Workforce to Lowest Level in a Decade
Mark Kelly spars with Pete Hegseth in classified briefing
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to where we stand with a healthcare package
Trump says ‘fantastic’ Wiles was right to say he has ‘alcoholic’s personality’
201 House Dems vote against bill named after 20-year-old American killed by illegal immigrant teen
JD Vance Responds to Controversial Susie Wiles Interview: ‘Sometimes I Am a Conspiracy Theorist’
CBP officer fires weapon during road rage incident near JFK Airport entrance
Wiles panned Bondi’s ‘binders full of nothingness’ during Epstein files stunt
Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Issues Statement After Stunning D.C. with Friendly Fire Interview
Trump admin fights in court to keep White House East Wing demolition, $300M ballroom build on track
US and UK will need to offer a sweet deal for Jimmy Lai as China stands firm on conviction

See also  Wiles panned Bondi’s ‘binders full of nothingness’ during Epstein files stunt

Biden has also denied the Obama administration’s role in constructing the “cages,” telling Univision’s Jorge Ramos in September, “We didn’t lock people up in cages.”

As Breitbart News reported:

Biden claimed that the Obama administration’s policies were more humane than those of President Donald Trump: “We didn’t lock people up in cages,” he said.

In fact, the “cages” were built by the Obama administration to deal with a surge of unaccompanied minors who crossed the border illegally in 2014.


HHS probes Minnesota’s use of billions in federal social service funds amid fraud concerns: report
Trump declares ‘Venezuelan regime’ a foreign terrorist organization, orders oil tanker blockade
Report: At Least 2 of the 5 Leftist New Year’s Eve Bombing Suspects Are Transgender
Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with two counts of first-degree murder in parents’ stabbing deaths
Trump Reduces Federal Workforce to Lowest Level in a Decade
Mark Kelly spars with Pete Hegseth in classified briefing
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to where we stand with a healthcare package
Trump says ‘fantastic’ Wiles was right to say he has ‘alcoholic’s personality’
201 House Dems vote against bill named after 20-year-old American killed by illegal immigrant teen
JD Vance Responds to Controversial Susie Wiles Interview: ‘Sometimes I Am a Conspiracy Theorist’
CBP officer fires weapon during road rage incident near JFK Airport entrance
Wiles panned Bondi’s ‘binders full of nothingness’ during Epstein files stunt
Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Issues Statement After Stunning D.C. with Friendly Fire Interview
Trump admin fights in court to keep White House East Wing demolition, $300M ballroom build on track
US and UK will need to offer a sweet deal for Jimmy Lai as China stands firm on conviction

Originally, the Obama administration was “warehousing” children — literally — in overwhelmed Border Patrol facilities. Breitbart News broke the story of the surge, which was partly triggered by Obama’s policy of allowing illegal alien children who entered the country as minors to stay in the country (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA).

Even PolitiFact deemed it “inaccurate” for Biden to claim that Obama’s administration did not put people in “cages,” and left-wing Snopes rated the claim “The Obama administration, not the Trump administration, built the cages that hold many immigrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border” as “true.”

Ocasio-Cortez has a history of making controversial statements regarding migrant detention centers, setting off a political firestorm last summer after accusing the Trump administration of running “concentration camps.”

“That is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps,” Ocasio-Cortez said of migrant detention centers during an Instagram Live last June.

“The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing, and we need to do something about it,” she added.

Story cited here.

See also  Ex-NFL reporter Michele Tafoya close to deciding on Minnesota Senate bid
Share this article:
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter