Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) fired back at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday after McCarthy demanded that she apologize to U.S. officials and the world for comparing migrant detention facilities operated by the U.S. government to concentration camps.
Asked by The Intercept’s Nicholas Ballasy on Capitol Hill about the controversy, the congresswoman said that it was McCarthy who should apologize for defending the conditions in the detention centers, as well as for suggesting that she was comparing the facilities to Nazi death camps.
{mosads}”Well, I think he should apologize for the deliberate conflation and attack on these terms,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the dispute. “I think he should apologize for the conditions that he’s supporting on the border.”
“He should apologize to the children that have been separated from their parents,” she continued. “He should apologize for his support for widespread human rights abuses.”
“Until he stops supporting the absolute dehumanizing conditions on our border, I will not apologize for holding him to account for it.”
McCarthy said at a press conference a day earlier that Ocasio-Cortez owed U.S. officials an apology for the comparison, which he said was indicative of a lack of knowledge regarding the history of concentration camps. She made the comments during an Instagram Live on Monday night.
“I think Congresswoman AOC needs to apologize,” McCarthy said Thursday. “Not only to the nation but to the world. She does not understand history.”
“She does not understand what is going on at the border at the same time. But there is no comparison … and to actually say that is really embarrassing,” he added.
“To take something that happened in history where millions of Jews had died, and equate it to somewhere that’s happening on the border, she owes this nation an apology.”
The dispute over the terms comes as the Trump administration has faced continuing criticism for conditions in migrant detention facilities, including from attorneys who said this week upon meeting with detained migrant children that kids as young as two were being cared for by other children in facilities that were filthy and not providing proper nutrition.