AOC joins backlash over Biden child migrant camp: ‘This is not okay’

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come down heavily on the Biden administration after recent reports revealed that it is reopening a child migration detention facility in Texas.

Without mincing words in her criticism, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who is popularly referred as AOC, said: “This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay - no matter the administration or party."

“Our immigration system is built on a carceral framework. It’s no accident that challenging how we approach both these issues are considered “controversial” stances. They require reimagining our relationship to each other and challenging common assumptions we take for granted,” tweeted AOC, who is considered among the top progressive leaders in the US.

The Democrat leader, however, noted that it has only been two months into the Biden administration. “Our fraught, unjust immigration system will not transform in that time. That’s why bold re-imagination is so impt (important). DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganised, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status and more,” she tweeted.

The issue of migrant detention camps in the US has been controversial for years and remained so during the Trump administration as well.

During the 2020 elections campaign, Joe Biden had promised measures to end child migrant detention facilities. AOC’s criticism came after The Washington Post reported that the child detention facility in Texas is being reopened to accommodate 700 minor teenagers capacity of other facilities was limited due to Covid-19.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected to the US House of Representative in the November 2020 elections for a second term, said “there’s a lot we can do” while talking about people raising questions about what can be done for the present immigration policy.

“To start with, [Pramila Jayapal] has led on the roadmap to freedom, a framework for urgently needed changes to US immigration policy,” she said, referring to the representative for Washington’s 7th congressional district.

Responding to the series of tweets by AOC, author Andrew Winston raised several questions on the right path for unaccompanied migrant children, including whether government housing will be required till a permanent solution is found.