New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) comparison of the migrant detention facilities at the United States-Mexico border to concentration “wholly inappropriate.”
In a June 26 press conference, Cuomo said that the Holocaust was “one of the greatest scourges in history. Six million Jews died during the Holocaust. There is no comparison to the Holocaust. Period.”
He added that such a comparison “suggests one does not understand what happened in the Holocaust.” However, Cuomo also said the conditions of the migrant detention facilities constituted a “human rights violation.”
Cuomo’s comments are similar to HBO’s Bill Maher’s take on the matter as well as myriad Jewish groups who argue that the conditions of the detention facilities are poor, but calling them concentration camps trivializes the Holocaust. Ocasio-Cortez has argued that she was not invoking the Holocaust, but her critics contend that her use of the phrase “never again” in her June 17 Instagram live stream suggest otherwise.
Ocasio-Cortez continues to defend her remarks, tweeting on June 26, “Words matter.”
