WASHINGTON — Eager to frame New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “the leader of the Democrat Party,” the White House has taken aim at the progressive congresswoman in recent days for her calls to shutter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and other criticisms of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
On Wednesday morning, the White House sent out an official press release slamming Ocasio-Cortez for wanting to eliminate the “agency arresting killers, rapists in New York.”
“While President Donald J. Trump, his administration, and the heroes of ICE work overtime to rid our country of criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, and gangbangers, top Democrats are doubling down on their call to eliminate the agency responsible for getting these animals off our streets,” the statement said.
The release was in response to a recent fundraising email sent out by Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign stating, among other core principles, she believes that “ICE, an agency that was just formed in 2003 during the Patriot Act era, is a rogue agency that should not exist.” ICE was created in 2003 after Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, forming the Department of Homeland Security and many of the other agencies and authorities that serve as the basis of much of the post-9/11 federal domestic surveillance apparatus.
While Ocasio-Cortez was one of the most vocal proponents of the “Abolish ICE” movement during Trump’s first term, it has not been central to her rhetoric or that of other progressives in the years since. The campaign email sent this week sparked a round of condemnation from White House officials after it was highlighted by a Business Insider reporter, but it is virtually identical to one her campaign sent in January 2023.
“Unfortunately, what I think many can agree with — that we shouldn’t have a rogue law enforcement agency, and we should have one that is accountable to the people — was too easily messaged against us,” Texas Rep. Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Semafor in April.
Ocasio-Cortez did not comment for this story, opting to highlight a statement from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wendesday defending her.
“The Trump administration is right about one thing: [Ocasio-Cortez] is a leader," the CHC wrote. "It's like a schoolyard — the bully is afraid of the true leader. The administration's obsession with deportation is built on lies. They don't care about public safety — they care about hitting 1 million deportations. They're going after farmworkers, students, community leaders and, yes, children with cancer.”
A 4-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer and her 7-year-old sibling were deported to Honduras with their mother in April.
While calls for abolishing ICE have fallen out of fashion, Democrats have continued to decry ICE and Trump’s immigration agenda. Last week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate — described the agency as “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo,” the Nazi secret police.
In the Wednesday press release, the White House highlighted recent arrests of immigrants in New York convicted of crimes, including manslaughter and rape. Other recent arrests in New York include the detention last week of a 20-year-old Bronx high school student with no criminal record who has been shuttled to at least four different states, his lawyers and mother told Chalkbeat, and the February deportation of Bronx 19-year-old Merwil Gutiérrez to the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador that has come under international scrutiny for human rights abuses.
Ocasio-Cortez and fellow New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat — the first undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress — called Gutiérrez’s deportation an “abduction” in a statement last month, noting he also did not have a criminal record and was deported to a country the teenager originally from Venezuela had never called home. His father described the arrest to the outlet Documented as a kidnapping.
Wednesday morning’s release was published at the same time as plainclothes, masked federal agents were arresting immigrants at a federal building in lower Manhattan where immigration court hearings are held, according to a video obtained by Spectrum News. Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to requests for comment.
The focus on Ocasio-Cortez comes as Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, mocked the Bronx and Queens representative over the indictment of her New Jersey colleague Rep. LaMonica McIver on federal assault charges in connection to an incident at a Newark ICE facility earlier this month. McIver has denied the charges and House Democrats leadership called the prosecution “extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact.”
“Remember, just a couple weeks ago, AOC went on social media saying that if we put a finger on any of her coworkers — Congress people that were at our Newark facility — there would be consequences,” Homan said on Fox News on Tuesday night, referencing Ocasio-Cortez’s comments at the time. “Well guess what? We did it. I’m waiting on the consequences.”