Ocasio-Cortez just proposed a brilliant solution to the detention center crisis

If the definition of insanity is repeatedly taking the same actions and expecting a different result, then the United States has gone far off the deep end of rationality.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has used similar logic in her calls for the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its enforcement arm, ICE, after observing the horrific results of the department’s efforts to address the refugee crisis on Amerca’s southern border.

The New York progressive representative reiterated her calls for a radical reformation of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies during a town hall meeting in her home district in Corona, Queens today.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s calls for the abolishment of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have made her the target of outrage from Republicans who seem to forget that their party has railed for decades against the establishment of large and expensive government agencies with little accountability to taxpayers and only have had a change of heart when the agency in question helps them achieve their racist aims of maintaining white control of American society against all demographic trends.

Many Republicans fail to realize that the DHS has only existed as a cabinet-level department since 2002 when it was created in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks by combining a group of agencies previously reporting to a range of other federal departments including the Treasury, Justice, Transportation, Agriculture, Transportation, Defense, and Energy Departments.

All of the agencies operated perfectly well under their old jurisdictions, but the presssure to be seen to be doing something in response to the failure of the Bush Administration to prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC — despite that administration’s intelligence professionals’ warnings that a plot by Osama Bin Laden was afoot — led to the creation of a redundant new bureaucracy dedicated to creating and implementing a “comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks,” according to the Department’s mission statement.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez pointed out to the crowd at her town hall how far the Department has strayed from its original mission by shifting its focus from the prevention of terrorist attacks to the criminalization of refugee immigrants seeking asylum in the United States after fleeing threats of violence in their Central America home countries.

By approaching the refugee crisis as a matter of criminal violation of US immigration laws rather than as a civil and humanitarian matter, the DHS has enabled a tremendous amount of abuse as the footage emanating from detention centers on the border have amply demonstrated.

The congresswoman made a compelling argument that the failure of the DHS to properly execute its mandate and prevent horrific conditions among refugees justified its dismantling and labeled the calls for its dissolution and reorganization as a much less radical proposal than George W. Bush’s foundation and implementation of the department to begin with or than Donald Trump’s co-option of the department to accomplish his racist immigration aims.

You can watch an excerpt of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s comments on the DHS in the video excerpts below.

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Vinnie Longobardo

is the Managing Editor of Washington Press and a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile, & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.