AOC: Laken Riley Act Is About Opening ’Private Prison Camps’ in Your Town

Ocasio-Cortez: “Mr. Speaker, I want the American people to know with eyes wide open, what is inside this bill because we stand here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals who attacked our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, and these are the people who want you to believe, who want us to believe that they’re trying to quote unquote ‘keep criminals off the streets,’ when they are opening the floodgates. I want the American people to know what is in this bill. Because in the guise and in the wake of tragedy, we are seeing a fundamental erosion of our civil rights. In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court, without a moment to assert their right and without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty. Without being found guilty of a crime they will be rounded up. That is what is inside this bill, a fundamental suspension of a core American value, and that is why I rise to oppose it.

If you’re a DREAMer, all someone has to do is point a finger and you will be rounded up. And we have seen moments like these happen before in the Patriot Act in the wake of the travesty of 9/11, a fundamental suspension of American civil liberties. That is what we are seeing here today. Mr. Speaker, you may wonder why so many of our friends across the aisle who care so deeply about the rule of law happen to be so desperate to pass this bill. After they are unleashing people who attacked police officers here on this Capitol into roaming our streets who are publicly saying now they want to get a gun, suddenly these folks care about public safety. I don’t think so. Look no further than the price tag of this bill, $83 billion. They know that it can’t be paid for. They know that the capacity is not there, and you know what will be there? Private prison companies are going to get flooded with money, who give this money no doubt — I want folks at home to look.

Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies who receive this kind of money and look at the votes on this bill. It is atrocious that people are lining their pockets with private prison profits in the name of a horrific tragedy and the victim of a crime. It is shameful. It is absolutely shameful. And Mr. Speaker, I’ll conclude with this. In a few months, there are members of Congress who voted for this bill who are going to pretend they didn’t know about all the bad things that are going to happen because of it. So when a private prison camp opens in your town, when a DREAMer —“

UNKNOWN: “The gentlelady’s time has expired.”

RASKIN: “I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.”

Ocasio-Cortez: “So when a private prison camp opens in your town and they say we didn’t know this was going to happen, know that they did, and they voted for it. When a DREAMer has disappeared from your classroom, when the President of the United States destroys what is left of the Constitution, as he’s announced in this attack on birthright citizenship, they will all say we didn’t know this was coming, and I want the American people to know that they did. This vote represents it. And with that, I yield back. Thank you very much.”

UNKNOWN: “The gentlelady yields.”