Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D., N.Y.) dared border czar Tom Homan to “come for me” after he threatened to refer her to the Justice Department for offering advice to illegal immigrants on how to avoid deportation.
Ocasio Cortez’s office held a “know your rights” webinar in February that advised illegal immigrants to ask for warrants and to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement searches. The event also offered tips on how to differentiate between different warrants ICE agents can carry.
“Tom Homan said he was going to refer me to DOJ because I’m using my free speech rights in order to advise people of their constitutional protections. To that I say: Come for me, do I look like I care?” Ocasio Cortez said at a Queens town hall event on Friday.
She said there was “nothing illegal about it and if they want to make it illegal, they can come take me.”
Homan recently said the progressive Squad member’s event may have been illegal, as her advice may impede ICE from carrying out the Trump administration’s ordered deportations.
“I’m working with the Department of Justice and finding out. Where is that line that they cross? So maybe AOC is going to be in trouble now,” he said.
During a later appearance on Fox News, he suggested Ocasio Cortez should “read the statutes enacted by Congress… because it’s a crime to enter this country illegally.”
“Not only that, but when you harbor and conceal and impede law enforcement, that’s a felony,” he added. “What she’s doing, she says she’s educating everybody on their constitutional rights, and we all know they’ve got constitutional rights, but what she’s really doing… she’s trying to teach them how to evade law enforcement.”
During her town hall on Friday, Ocasio Cortez also blasted the Trump administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
“I don’t even want to call them deportations,” she said. “They are sanctioned kidnappings in many circumstances.”
“They do not have carte blanche to enter,” she said of ICE. “If they do want to knock on your door, or knock on anyone’s door — including your workplace — you can tell them, ‘Show me a warrant. Show me a judicial warrant.’ And if they don’t show you a warrant, you can say they can come back with a warrant. You have the right to turn them away.”