CNN’s Rye: U.S. will soon be running ‘death camps’ at the border
CNN political commentator Angela Rye declared Tuesday that the U.S. will be soon be running “death camps” along the U.S. southern border unless “our consciousnesses are not quickly pierced.”
Rye made the comments during an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, in a debate with CNN contributor and former Trump Hispanic advisory council president Steve Cortes.
The rhetoric comes after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) received considerable backlash from both sides of the aisle on Tuesday after she compared migrant detention facilities at the border to “concentration camps.”
{mosads}Rye backed Ocasio-Cortez’s comments, pointing to an encyclopedia definition of concentration camps and saying: “Whether we call them concentration camps or we call them detention, they are problematic.”
Cortes argued that the migrant detention facilities were necessary due to the “overwhelming” number of migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally.
“What we have now are foreign citizens who are trespassing into the United States overwhelming for economic reasons, and we know that to be true historically and presently because the director of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] just told us 90 percent are not showing up for their asylum hearings, they’re not legitimate refugees, they’re economic migrants who have decided on their own when and how they can become American citizens and that’s not the right away,” said Cortes, who also serves as a CNN contributor.
Rye responded by warning that what she described as concentration camps could soon become “death camps.” Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday drew a distinction between the two, tweeting, “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.”
In responding to Cortes, Rye pointed to “white fear” and racism in the U.S. as a factor in the situation at the border, which she described as an “inhumane crisis.”
“I don’t know when we decided that a humanitarian crisis could be defined whether or not someone is carrying a green card or whether or not someone has their papers,” Rye said Tuesday night.
“Before we are American, we are human beings, and it is not OK,” she continued. “It is a damn shame what is happening at this border, and the fact that you’re going to justify it by economics, let me just tell you, there are a whole lot of people making a whole lot of money by having these people in detention centers.”
“You are on the wrong side of history. In 1933 there were concentration camps. In 1941, they were death camps and that is where we are going if our consciousnesses are not quickly pierced, it is a problem,” she added, as Cortes rolled his eyes in disagreement.
“Do not laugh it off. Do not laugh it off,” Rye responded.
Ocasio-Cortez’s concentration camps comparison was met from criticism from the left and right, including from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who lost members of his family in the Holocaust that saw 6 million Jews killed at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.
“As an American, I’m deeply concerned about the treatment of children at our borders,” Gottheimer said in a text. “But, make no mistake, the comparison is cruel and disrespectful to the six million who were murdered in the Holocaust, including members of my own family. Concentration camps were places where Jews and others were enslaved, tortured, and then sent to gas chambers to be murdered.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) also blasted Ocasio-Cortez for the comparison.
“Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history. 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this,” tweeted Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican.
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