AOC Talks Immigration with NYT

NY Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat down with the NY for a wide ranging interview. Immigration came up a fair amount, including these reasonably zesty exchanges:

NYT: …I want to talk about immigration. Under Biden, more asylum seekers are being held in private detention centers than under Trump. Families are still being separated. The Biden administration kept Trump-era policies that sped up deportations and made it harder for legitimate claimants to come to the U.S. So, what grade do you give the administration on immigration?

AOC: Immigration is arguably this administration’s weakest issue. This is one area where our policy is dictated by politics, arguably more so than almost any other. There are very clear recommendations and suggestions that we have made to the administration to provide relief on this issue, and it’s my belief that some of the hesitation around this has to do with a fear around just being seen as approving or providing permission structures, or really just the Republican narratives that have surrounded immigration. We also need to examine the root causes of this migration and address that this problem doesn’t start at our border, but it starts with our foreign policy.

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NYT: Let me ask you this: 100,000 migrants, as you have pointed to, have come to New York City, which your district is a part of. The city estimates it will spend $5 billion on caring for new arrivals this year. Some of this crisis is because migrants are being bused to New York by certain governors, but it’s a real crisis, and a lot of New Yorkers don’t like it. Sixty-two percent of registered voters in New York City, one poll found, support relocating migrants to other parts of the state. You’ve said New Yorkers would welcome migrants, but they’re actually protesting. Have you misread your constituents’ feelings about this?

AOC: I don’t think so. I think that we’re still willing, but what we need is partnership from the federal government. And I have not been shy around criticism of how the Biden administration has handled this issue. New York City is the front line on this, and we have regularly asked the administration for many, many different avenues of relief.

I think the issue that New Yorkers have is not that there are immigrants coming to New York City, but that immigrants are being prevented from sustaining and supporting themselves. We have New Yorkers, and we have New York businesses, that want to receive migrants and want to employ migrants. And that includes across the state. We have a robust agricultural sector that wants to hire migrants — they have said this repeatedly. A hospitality sector that wants to do the same. And the Biden administration’s refusal to open up work authorizations or extend temporary protective status really prevents us from doing what we do best, which is allowing and creating an environment where immigrants from all over the world can create a livelihood here.

-KitJ