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.


MS NOW’s O’Donnell Fumes at Trump Sharing Old Military School Pic, Gets Every Aspect of His ‘Report’ Wrong During Tantrum
Tech Giant Details How Its AI Went Haywire
Trump confirms Pentagon plans for 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, disputes report on Ground Zero absence
Pop star-turned-Dem candidate’s defense of graphic murder video resurfaces in key House race
Mica Miller’s siblings allege pastor husband forced final hospitalization before her 2024 death
Florida Woman Kills Man Arrested for Murdering His Father
NBA Vet Enes Kanter Freedom Sends Letter with 5 Deadly Questions to WNBA Commissioner After Ejection from Arena
Strange Georgia crime-scene clues blow hole in theory of mom’s mysterious death, family says
Dolly Parton: Tribute to an American icon
Trump’s tougher round-two birthright citizenship strategy hinges on key legal distinction, experts say
Trump administration helps end Armenia and Azerbaijan’s forever war
Appeals court delivers unsettling ruling — and says Supreme Court left it no choice
Meet the MAGA-rapping sticker mogul running to replace Elise Stefanik in Congress
‘Tony’ is an annoying, unimpressive biopic of Anthony Bourdain
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moves to cut state funding for AI-powered Flock cameras amid privacy concerns

See also  At March on Washington, an urgent plea for black voters to turn out in the midterm elections

“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.


MS NOW’s O’Donnell Fumes at Trump Sharing Old Military School Pic, Gets Every Aspect of His ‘Report’ Wrong During Tantrum
Tech Giant Details How Its AI Went Haywire
Trump confirms Pentagon plans for 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, disputes report on Ground Zero absence
Pop star-turned-Dem candidate’s defense of graphic murder video resurfaces in key House race
Mica Miller’s siblings allege pastor husband forced final hospitalization before her 2024 death
Florida Woman Kills Man Arrested for Murdering His Father
NBA Vet Enes Kanter Freedom Sends Letter with 5 Deadly Questions to WNBA Commissioner After Ejection from Arena
Strange Georgia crime-scene clues blow hole in theory of mom’s mysterious death, family says
Dolly Parton: Tribute to an American icon
Trump’s tougher round-two birthright citizenship strategy hinges on key legal distinction, experts say
Trump administration helps end Armenia and Azerbaijan’s forever war
Appeals court delivers unsettling ruling — and says Supreme Court left it no choice
Meet the MAGA-rapping sticker mogul running to replace Elise Stefanik in Congress
‘Tony’ is an annoying, unimpressive biopic of Anthony Bourdain
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moves to cut state funding for AI-powered Flock cameras amid privacy concerns

See also  Enes Kanter Freedom ejected from WNBA game after courtside confrontation with WNBA player

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.


MS NOW’s O’Donnell Fumes at Trump Sharing Old Military School Pic, Gets Every Aspect of His ‘Report’ Wrong During Tantrum
Tech Giant Details How Its AI Went Haywire
Trump confirms Pentagon plans for 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, disputes report on Ground Zero absence
Pop star-turned-Dem candidate’s defense of graphic murder video resurfaces in key House race
Mica Miller’s siblings allege pastor husband forced final hospitalization before her 2024 death
Florida Woman Kills Man Arrested for Murdering His Father
NBA Vet Enes Kanter Freedom Sends Letter with 5 Deadly Questions to WNBA Commissioner After Ejection from Arena
Strange Georgia crime-scene clues blow hole in theory of mom’s mysterious death, family says
Dolly Parton: Tribute to an American icon
Trump’s tougher round-two birthright citizenship strategy hinges on key legal distinction, experts say
Trump administration helps end Armenia and Azerbaijan’s forever war
Appeals court delivers unsettling ruling — and says Supreme Court left it no choice
Meet the MAGA-rapping sticker mogul running to replace Elise Stefanik in Congress
‘Tony’ is an annoying, unimpressive biopic of Anthony Bourdain
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moves to cut state funding for AI-powered Flock cameras amid privacy concerns

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  Dolly Parton dies at age 80
Share this article:
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter