'Maybe Mexico shouldn't let YOU in when you run away to sip umbrella drinks': AOC tears into Ted Cruz after he claimed her 'open border' policies would make the crisis worse
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ted Cruz got into yet another Twitter spat Thursday where she claimed he's 'all puff' as they argued over who's to blame for the immigration crisis at the southern border.
During a Twitter rant, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez blasted 'Ted Cruz types' for putting on a show but not making real strides in terms of improving the situation through the legislature.
'A politician's strength isn't based on a trip,' she tweeted as part of an eight-part thread. 'It's based on their policy and voting RECORD.'
Cruz and several other Republicans have visited detention centers at the southern border and have decried the conditions and overcrowding.
'And the fact is a LOT of Ted Cruz types who are now going down to meet refugee children in boats outfitted w/ machine guns are the ones who helped create this problem in the first place,' she insisted, taking aim at the GOP Texas senator.
Cruz pushed back, writing in response to her tweets: '@AOC explains the real Dem position: abolish ICE. Full open borders. Which would make the #BidenBorderCrisis even worse.'
'She says nothing else works. Really? Last year, we had the lowest illegal immigration IN 45 YEARS. This year, we have the highest in 20 years,' Cruz continued in lauding Trump-era policies.
She responded: 'Ted, this is pretty rich coming from someone who fled their own home (and responsibilities) during an environmental crisis to cross the border and seek refuge in Mexico.'
AOC was referencing a scandal earlier this year when the Lone Star State was experiencing an unprecedented winter storm emergency – causing a lot of Texans to be left without power and resources – and Cruz was pictured during that time flying to Cancun with his family for vacation.
He was excoriated on social media, where critics said he should have been in Texas to help solve the crisis there.
'Also you funded cages, expanded cages, and yet you're complaining about cages,' AOC tweeted.
She added: 'You have no policy, just puff.'
'Maybe Mexico shouldn't let YOU in the next time you try to run away from your job to sip umbrella drinks in Cancún.'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took aim at Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the thread where she also called for the abolition of border agencies in the midst of Biden's immigration crisis
Cruz lashed out at AOC for her thread, claiming abolishing ICE and creating open borders would 'make the border crisis worse'
AOC responded by excoriating Cruz for going to Cancun for vacation when his home state of Texas was experiencing an emergency during an unprecedented winter storm
'Maybe Mexico shouldn't let YOU in,' she tweeted
Cruz said AOC was trying in her tweet about Cancun to deflect from real border problems and launch a personal attack instead
AOC repeated her demand Cruz resign for voting to overturn the presidential election results after the January 6 Capitol attack
The New York representative also told Cruz: 'A reminder that your resignation is 84 days past due. At least.'
After the January 6 Capitol attack, Cruz was one of the several Republican lawmakers to vote to overturn the presidential election results in a few of the states Trump lost – and where the GOP claims he should have won if it weren't for fraud and cheating.
This led to Democrats to call for their resignation from Congress.
Ocasio-Cortez bashed Republicans on Twitter Thursday, claiming they are just now starting to care about the issue at the border now that it's under a Democrat administration.
'A lot of people who are just now suddenly horrified at the dehumanizing conditions at our border are the same folks who dehumanize immigrants + helped build these cages in the 1st place,' she wrote.
'For all those who are brand new to this & only care about cages on a partisan basis, catch up: we've been fighting our own party on immigration for a long time,' the progressive congresswoman continued.
'This is the result of Congress endlessly dumping money into CBP/ICE cages vs humane policy,' she tweeted.
AOC claims Republicans who are responsible for creating the crisis are the one who created it.
'Politicians and pundits who are pretending to care about the border now but have continuously voted to expand these cages can sit down,' she demanded.
'You might be new to this, but we're true to this,' AOC added. 'Short-term issue is facilities. Long-term issue is destabilization that's driving migration.'
'For all the new tears GOP have about the border, what are their policy solutions?' she continued in her rant. 'A Muslim ban, racist policy, shutting down the border, & more cages.'
She also suggested – like many times before – that border agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be abolished entirely or completely restructured from the ground up.
'If you don't want children in cages, then you need to stop upholding CBP, ICE, and the military as the solution to this crisis,' she tweeted.
'Fact is a lot of the politicians crying right now don't work to solve either,' she added.
'They vote to grow ICE + CBP cages and they do everything to avoid addressing the root: US foreign policy and interventionism that destabilizes regions, the climate crisis, and unjust economic policy.'
AOC took to Twitter in a lengthy thread where she bashed Republican for just now bringing attention to the border crisis now that it's happening under a Democrat administration
'Catch up!' AOC said people just now tuning into the issue should educate themselves on the ongoing issues at the border
She instead suggested getting rid of ICE and other border enforcement agencies
Cruz pushed back against this on Twitter, as well.
'Classic leftist strategy: ignore substance, engage in ad hominem attacks,' he wrote.
'True or false: Obama built the cages,' Cruz posed. True or false: Biden is building bigger cages for more kids.'
He added: Your policy—open borders & abolishing ICE—would result in millions of kids being abused by traffickers.'
Ocasio-Cortez finally tore into President Joe Biden's handling of the southern border crisis, calling conditions 'barbaric' and 'inhumane'.
'As we've seen there are arrivals and undocumented children – rather unaccompanied children that have come at the border and this had lead to completely inhuman and unacceptable, horrifying conditions of children in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] custody,' the New York representative told constituents during a virtual town hall Wednesday.
'And it's unacceptable and it's horrifying,' she continued.
AOC also claimed that families who were separated during Trump's presidency are 'owed reparations Period.'
She did not specify how much the reparations should be, and her office has not yet responded to DailyMail.com request for expansion on her demand.
Ocasio-Cortez finally tore into Biden's policies Wednesday, claiming the conditions at border facilities under this president are 'horrifying,' 'barbaric' and 'unacceptable'
During a virtual town hall Wednesday evening, she said mass unaccompanied minor arrivals have 'lead to completely inhuman and unacceptable, horrifying conditions of children in CBP custody. And it's unacceptable and it's horrifying'
Dentition and holding facilities at the southern border are overcrowded – some by more than 1,700% capacity
AOC didn't go as far as to blame Biden for the crisis, claiming the president is working to fix the problem and instead blamed U.S. foreign policy for exacerbating bad situations in Central American countries from where migrants are fleeing.
'I've been in contact with the Biden Administration personally. What is different is they're trying to figure out,' she said. 'How to find the resources to end his problem.'
'I don't want to excuse any of this,' she said of Biden's policies. 'We should be doing better by now.'
The congresswoman's comments came the day after she was slammed for telling supporters during a lengthy Instagram live Tuesday night to stop calling the record number of migrants arriving at the border a 'surge', insisting it is not.
She said using that language places the crisis in a 'militaristic frame'.
'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,' AOC claimed.
'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'.
The critique came after AOC told her Instagram following Tuesday using the word 'surge' to describe the border crisis is incorrect and puts it in a 'militaristic frame' – despite the number of illegal crossings reaching record numbers under Biden
Critics claimed AOC mixed up the meaning of the word 'surge' and 'insurgent'
'Every word of this is false,' Cruz bashed AOC for her video, claiming Democrats are trying to 'cover up' the crisis
Overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, Guatemala migrants cross into the U.S. from the Rio Grande
In Biden's first few month's in office, the U.S. has seen the highest-ever numbers of illegal border crossers at the U.S.-Mexico border – particularly when it comes to unaccompanied minor migrants.
Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the administration's efforts to address the problem, as the White House still refuses to call it a 'crisis.'
Harris, however, has still not visited the southern border or the overflowing facilities as senior officials have walked back on her role, claiming she is more focused on addressing 'root causes' in migrants' home countries.
Ocasio-Cortez seemed to dismiss this in her Twitter rant Thursday.
'A politician's strength isn't based on a trip,' she posted.
During a question-and-answer portion of her town hall Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said: 'The fact that this keeps happening is a political failure of both parties.'
A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a bill Tuesday that would create a $1 billion emergency fund for border crises, but the proposal requires the Department of Homeland Security to decide on specific metrics that would unlock the money.
The bill, proposed by Homeland Security Committee ranking member John Katko and border district Democrat Henry Cuellar, would prevent DHS from having to reallocate its own funds for food, transportation or clothing during migrant surges.
It's rare that Democrats and Republicans agree on immigration, but there is bipartisan agreement that the situation at the southern border right now has reached a peak.
AOC's critique of the border situation came after she was accused of giving Biden a pass during her Tuesday Instagram video but excoriating former President Donald Trump for his border and immigration policies that also resulted in issues at detention and holding facilities.
During 2019, Ocasio-Cortez visited facilities at the border and said the conditions under Trump were like 'concentration camps.'
Biden's border crisis is many times that of Trump's.
The number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border is at record levels as well, with children put into small pods at facilities where they sleep on the floor
Facilities were overcrowded, some by nearly 2,000% max capacity, and Customs and Border Protection projections last month showed numbers are expected to reach a record of 26,000 in September, which is more than double the record crossings under the last administration.
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 as agencies attempt to make additional accommodations with 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.
Biden's administration was also facing claims of transparency issues as they refused for weeks to allow journalists into detention facilities to report and capture images on the conditions.
On Tuesday, Biden finally allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children.
The tour revealed a severely overcrowded tent structure in Donna, Texas, where more than 4,000 migrants – children and family unites – are crammed into pods.
The youngest are kept in a large, colorful playpen with mats on the floor for sleeping since the facility is flooding by more than 1,700% of its capacity and the dormitories are full.
Border guards say 14% – 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.
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