{"id":21623,"date":"2019-06-21T12:29:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T16:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21623"},"modified":"2019-06-21T13:01:11","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:01:11","slug":"aocs-clueless-concentration-camp-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/21\/aocs-clueless-concentration-camp-remarks\/","title":{"rendered":"AOC\u2019s Clueless \u201cConcentration Camp\u201d Remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)\nhas become famous (and often infamous) for her frequent gaffes and displays of\nignorance. Earlier this week, the New York Democrat stuck her foot in her mouth\nonce again, this time comparing migrant detention centers on the southern\nborder to \u201cconcentration\ncamps\u201d<\/a> run by \u201can authoritarian and fascist presidency.\u201d And\nmany on the left \u2013 including politicians and journalists \u2013 agreed with the\n\u201csentiment.\u201d Yet both the comments and the \u201csentiment\u201d are sheer and utter\nnonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migrant detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border\nmay not be five-star resorts. That is not their purpose. Instead, their\nobjective is to detain foreign nationals attempting to enter the United States\nunlawfully. Comparing them to concentration camps run by the twentieth\ncentury\u2019s most brutal and murderous totalitarian regimes, the German National\nSocialists (Nazis) and Soviet communists, betrays a woeful ignorance of both\nhistory and current political reality. This prompted one Polish parliamentarian\nto actually invite AOC to Poland to learn about real\nconcentration camps<\/a>, an invitation she should definitely take\nup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bolsheviks began establishing concentration camps\nfor their political enemies soon after seizing power in Russia. The Soviet\nconcentration camp system \u2013 known as the Gulag<\/a>\n\u2013 reached its bloody apogee under Stalin during the 1930s and 40s when it\nenslaved millions, killing many in the process. The German Nazis also\nestablished their own camps<\/a>\nonce Hitler gained power in Germany in 1933 and expanded them as they conquered\nmost of Europe. At its pinnacle, the Third Reich\u2019s concentration camp empire \u2013\ndeath camps in particular \u2013 worked overtime to exterminate the continent\u2019s Jews\nand other groups the Nazis deemed \u201csubhuman,\u201d such as Gypsies or Slavs. The German\nand communist concentration camps had many common features, including forced\nlabor in horrific conditions \u2013 causing many inmates to simply be worked to\ndeath \u2013 starvation rations, brutal beatings, arbitrary punishments, and cruel torture.\nPlenty of books have been written and documentary films made on the Nazi and\nSoviet concentration camps, so there is no excuse for public officials to be\nthis ignorant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own uncle, a Polish Catholic, was captured by the\nGerman occupation forces in a dragnet to feed the Third Reich\u2019s insatiable\ndemand for slave labor. He recalled the exhaustion, hunger, and diseases that\naccompanied the life of an Auschwitz inmate on a daily basis as well as the\nfrequent beatings and deaths of fellow inmates. Once, he was brutally beaten\nfor stealing a rotten onion from a dumpster near the German officers\u2019 barracks.\nGiven such treatment, it was a miracle that he (barely) survived the German\ncamps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the totalitarian camps \u2013 which were filled with\ninnocent people that the Nazi or Soviet regimes arbitrarily considered enemies \u2013\nthere is a very simple and easy way to avoid being held in a migrant detention\ncenter: don\u2019t try to sneak into the U.S. illegally. We are not invading Central\nAmerica and rounding up its inhabitants. Rather, the U.S. is simply attempting\nto protect its borders like any other sovereign nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the men and women of the DHS at the southern\nborder are doing their best while caring for the detained migrants as humanely\nas possible given the critical situation. As Border Patrol chief Carla Provost stated<\/a>\nduring the House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on Thursday, she was\n\u201cextremely offended\u201d by AOC\u2019s remarks.  She\nadded: \u201cI\u2019m calling agents who are bringing toys in for children and buying\nthem with their personal money; agents are bringing in clothes; they\u2019re feeding\nbabies; they\u2019re going above and beyond day in and day out to try to care for\nthese individuals to best of their ability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our elected representatives should know better. The\nreason for the humanitarian crisis at the southern border is that a growing\nwave of illegal migration from Central America \u2013 consisting of many\nunaccompanied children and real or alleged family units \u2013 is overwhelming our\nresources. We are at breaking point, and the situation in our overcrowded\ndetention centers is merely the predictable outcome of the obstructionist\npolicies of AOC and other ideologically kindred politicians who are sabotaging\nattempts to properly fund border security and discourage mass illegal\nmigration. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has become famous (and often infamous) for her frequent gaffes and displays of ignorance. Earlier this week, the New York Democrat stuck her foot in her mouth once again, this time comparing migrant detention centers on the southern border to \u201cconcentration camps\u201d run by \u201can authoritarian and fascist presidency.\u201d And<\/p>\n

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