Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling out Democratic leadership for their treatment of Latino voters.
On Tuesday's episode of Pod Save America, Ocasio-Cortez told hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor— who served as aides in the Obama administration— that she believes the Democrats have never made an effort to appeal to Latino voters.
“I can at least say with Latino voters, we’ve never tried as a party. The Democratic Party has not tried in terms of Latino electorates," she said. “We really need to step up both in our efforts on campaign, but also in our efforts in governance."
Ocasio-Cortez cited immigration as the reason the Latino community is often dissuaded from supporting Democratic candidates, as even under President Biden, migrant apprehension has hit a record high.
“And I mean, where’s our DREAM Act? Where is our immigration reform?” Ocasio-Cortez continued, citing the recent overturning of DACA protections for those who immigrated to the United States as children.
According to Ocasio-Cortez, immigrants are even overlooked in unrelated domestic policies. While she supports President Biden's recent pardoning of those convicted for marijuana possession, she condemned him for not extending that order to those who are undocumented.
“Even recently with President Biden’s marijuana executive order, I very much applaud that he went there, but he exempted people who were convicted if they were convicted while they were undocumented," Ocasio-Cortez said. “We’re looking at the overwhelming majority of people who have been convicted that would have benefited from that pardon have status, they have status complications."
Ocasio-Cortez shared that she wishes Democrats would come together and support U.S. immigrants, particularly so they can more easily counter Republican officials who unabashedly construct their platforms on anti-immigration policies.
“It’s tough because on the other side they have no qualms. They have no qualms about having an anti-immigrant message,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But I think we get scared of that and that segmentation prevents a clear message and that lack of clarity makes it hard to win people over."
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