"Intentional Cruelty": AOC Tells Us What She Saw Inside a Migrant Detention Center
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
Exclusive interview: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has used social media and a cunning instinct for politics and publicity to build a megaphone that rivals Donald Trump’s—especially regarding the US detention of migrants who enter the country at its southern border. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez was part of a 16-member congressional delegation that got a rare glimpse inside three highly fortified migrant detention facilities, which she has referred to as “concentration camps.” Congressional staffers had privately worried that officials would sanitize and curtail their tour inside, but the visit turned out to be more revealing than anyone had expected. A Mother Jones contributor, Jonathan Katz, accompanied the delegation to the sites, though reporters were not permitted inside. Later, he sat down with Ocasio-Cortez to get her perspective on what had happened during the day, how we got here, and where things might go next. Listen to our Q&A with the congresswoman who has catapulted the issue to national attention
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| 0:00.0 | There is no other apparent reason besides intentional cruelty. |
| 0:05.0 | And for them, what they call that is deterrence, right? |
| 0:09.0 | If you torture people, maybe they won't think America is great, and maybe that's their grand plan. |
| 0:17.0 | This is a special bonus edition of the Mother Jones podcast. |
| 0:25.0 | I'm Jamila King in New York. |
| 0:27.0 | Like a lot of you, I'm heading out for the 4th of July holiday, |
| 0:30.0 | but the podcast team just received this exclusive audio. We wanted to get to your |
| 0:35.8 | podcast feeds right away. The whole facilities culture is rotted from the core and prioritizes and incentivizes to humanizing behavior. |
| 0:48.0 | Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a candid sit-down interview in El Paso between the Congresswoman from New York |
| 0:55.4 | and Mother Jones contributor freelance journalist Jonathan Katz. |
| 0:59.8 | And I said it is extremely clear that you all have lost all control over the culture here in these facilities. |
| 1:07.0 | What she witnessed inside detention facilities there, her full unfiltered observations, overcrowding. |
| 1:15.0 | There were so many people crowded in the cell that people could not sleep. |
| 1:19.0 | Detainees freezing in the ice box. |
| 1:21.0 | And I said, that's enough. |
| 1:23.0 | And I turned around and I go to the cell and put my hand on the glass of the window and I said, |
| 1:27.2 | what's the temperature in the cell? |
| 1:28.8 | I'm going to hand the mic over to Mother Jones immigration reporter in LA, |
| 1:32.0 | Fernando Echavri, to bring you up to speed |
| 1:34.6 | about what went down this week and how we got here. What we saw today was unconscionable. No child should ever be taken from their family. |
| 1:55.0 | On Monday, Ocasio Cortez was part of a 16-member congressional delegation |
| 1:59.0 | that got a rare glimpse inside three highly fortified facilities. |
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