‘Same for any US citizen’: AOC self-owns in attack on ex-ICE chief over migrant ‘family separation’

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was literally left speechless when her attempt to shame a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director backfired, but that didn’t stop her supporters from claiming victory.

Ocasio-Cortez confronted former ICE director Thomas Homan during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Friday, apparently trying to goad him into admitting the inhumanity of splitting up families under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance illegal immigration policy.

“So you are the author of the family separation policy,” Ocasio-Cortez declares, almost triumphantly, after Homan acknowledges signing a memo recommending the policy to Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.

Unwilling to accept AOC’s insistence on the injustice of “family separation,” Homan points out that the policy is “the same as it is with every US citizen parent that gets arrested with a child.” Momentarily at a loss for words, AOC tries to equate crossing the border illegally with seeking asylum, but gets shot down again.

Suitably chastened, the congresswoman took to Twitter afterwards to continue the discussion in a safer space.

She blamed the administration’s policy of requiring asylum-seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border for up to two months for the deaths of migrants who have tried to cross illegally - specifically, Oscar and Valeria Ramirez, the Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned last month trying to cross the Rio Grande.

While her fan club cheered her on for smashing the “white supremacist” “jerk,” most tweeters were less than impressed with her performance. “These are actually policies of a country with laws in place for legal immigration,” one said. “Go cry in front of another vacant lot,” tweeted another. One user pointed out that the Ramirezes did not have a valid asylum claim - they were economic migrants, according to the child’s grandmother. 

AOC was far from the only member of Congress to attempt to land blows on Homan. Rep. Jesus Garcia got an earful after melodramatically asking the former ICE director if he had children - or had ever held a dead one in his arms.

“First of all, your comments are disgusting,” Homan shoots back, eventually declaring, “We’re a nation of laws. If you don’t like it, sir, change it.”

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