The White House tore into progressive New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week over her repeated calls to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency tasked with apprehending and deporting violent illegal immigrants.
“I believe that ICE, an agency that was just formed in 2003 during the Patriot Act era, is a rogue agency that should not exist,” she said in a recent campaign fundraising email.
President Donald Trump’s White House hit back with a statement touting ICE’s work getting rid of illegal immigrants and included a list of criminal aliens the agency recently detained in New York.
“AOC, Democrat Party leader, calls for abolishing ICE. Meanwhile, the brave men and women of ICE get dangerous criminal illegal immigrants off our streets and protect American citizens. Why does AOC want to stop that?” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in the statement.
Among the criminal aliens the White House said were arrested in Ocasio-Cortez’s home state of New York were Luis Alejandro Castillo-Torres, a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua with a felony assault conviction, and Julian Lema Bravo of Ecuador, who’s convicted of raping a minor.
“Where is the congresswoman’s concern for her fellow New Yorkers who have been brutally killed, maimed, and raped by criminal illegal immigrants allowed to roam free due to New York’s so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies?” the White House added.
The statement included a link to a New York Post report from November 2024 that found that New York city has over 58,000 illegal immigrants who are convicts or facing charges.
Ocasio-Cortez has previously called for ICE to be abolished and on her congressional website advises illegals to not cooperate with ICE.
