Pence blasts ‘outrage’ of Ocasio-Cortez’s concentration camps comparison

“We must never allow the memory of those lost in the Holocaust to be cheapened as a cliché to advance some left-wing political narrative,” Pence said.

By World Israel News Staff  

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday condemned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for using the term “concentration camps” to describe the conditions at migrant detention centers at the U.S.-Mexican border.

“We must never allow the memory of those lost in the Holocaust to be cheapened as a cliché to advance some left-wing political narrative,” Pence said, addressing the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit in Washington.

“Last month, a leading Democrat in Congress actually compared our U.S. Customs and Border Protection detection facilities to concentration camps,” Pence told the audience, without referring to Ocasio-Cortez by name.

Calling the comparison an “outrage,” the vice president asserted that “the Nazis took lives, American law enforcement save lives every day. This slander of law enforcement was an insult to the six million killed in the Holocaust.”

Republicans have been joined by some Democrats in Congress as well as the likes of N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo in blasting Ocasio-Cortez for her comments. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has been among the Democrats who have backed the comparison. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, (D-Mich.) has also supported Ocasio-Cortez’s comments.

Ocasio-Cortez has doubled down amid the criticism. She said in late June that “kids are dying in cages on our border. Families are being put in ‘freezers’  and ‘dog pounds.’ Years from now, people will look for the journalists, officials, and everyday people who stood up for what was right in real-time.”

Polish MP Dominik Tarczynski, vice president of European Conservatives in the European Council, who took issue with the  New York congresswoman’s comments, formally invited her to visit the sites of Nazi death camps and concentration camps.