Though Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing backlash from all over the political spectrum for comparing migrant detention centers to concentration camps — the freshman Democrat has announced that she will “never” apologize for the insensitive comments.
Ocasio-Cortez has been repeatedly doubling down on her comparison, which was originally made during an Instagram Live video on Monday. “The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the land of the free is extraordinarily disturbing,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her video.
“DHS ripped 1000s of children from their parents & put them in cages w inhumane conditions. They call their cells ‘dog pounds’ & ‘freezers,’” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, referring to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are. If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps – not the nomenclature.”
DHS ripped 1000s of children from their parents & put them in cages w inhumane conditions.
They call their cells “dog pounds” & “freezers.”
I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are.
If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps – not the nomenclature. https://t.co/eJpJWeYiot
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 19, 2019
The tweet was a response to Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declaring that she owes an apology “not only to the nation, but the world.”
Ocasio-Cortez has demeaned the outrage about her remarks as coming from “shrieking Republicans.”
“And for the shrieking Republicans who don’t know the difference: concentration camps are not the same as death camps. Concentration camps are considered by experts as ‘the mass detention of civilians without trial.’ And that’s exactly what this administration is doing,” she wrote on Twitter.
Even the Auschwitz Memorial has weighed in.
“If you spend a few minutes learning some actual history, you will find out that concentration camps are different from death camps and have a history that both predates and extends far past the Nazis,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted to defend Ocasio-Cortez.
The Auschwitz Memorial responded to Hayes, saying that he should follow them to learn more about what happened in concentration camps.
@chrislhayes Please consider following @AuschwitzMuseum where everyday we commemorate and educate about the tragic human history of #Auschwitz.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 18, 2019
They also responded to CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski who was defending AOC.
“The history of Auschwitz is far more complicated than this as it combined two functions: a concentration camp and from March 1942 an extermination center. See our online lesson,” the memorial responded.
