Progressive US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech “left a little to be desired”, adding that the president didn’t push hard enough to reduce student loan debt and that he came up short on issues such as immigration and energy.
“The piece on immigration was really just glossed over and we have over 10 – you know, anywhere between 10 to 13 million immigrants in this country that feel desperate for a path to citizenship,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC after the speech.
“We heard, you know, some speaking to Dreamers but Dreamers want their families to be able to stay. They don’t want to be separated from their parents either,” the New York representative added.
“So I think there’s some themes that are, left a little bit to be desired for key constituencies in the Democratic base, but the president’s goal was very clear on really projecting a theme of unity and I think he stuck to that,” she said.
The 32-year-old criticised Mr Biden for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and for not focusing enough on renewable energy.
She said it “definitely was a lost opportunity” to not push harder to leave the use of oil behind.
“Russia is very, very much reliant on the rest of the world buying its oil. We are releasing oil reserves right now in order to ease that, but we shouldn’t be relying on fossil fuels to begin with and that would really solve a lot of these issues,” she said. “I think that there’s a lot more to be desired there.”
She added that electric vehicles “are great” but that “they are not the main form of transit for millions of people who live in urban or urban-adjacent areas in the United States. And so we need to hear more about our transition to clean energy beyond just, you know, weatherizing our windows, which is incredibly important, and EVs”.
“But we really need to hear more, I think, about mass transit, trains, high-speed rail and renewable energy,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said.
She also pushed for the president to provide Temporary Protected Status to Ukrainians living in the US, which would allow them to stay in the country legally.
“First and foremost, I think the world is watching, and many immigrants and refugees are watching,” she said. “How the world treats ... Ukrainian refugees should be how we are treating all refugees in the United States.”
“The way that the world treated Syrian refugees versus how the world is greeting Ukrainian refugees is a very stark contrast,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez added. “The way that we are looking at immediate granting of [Temporary Protected Status] to Ukrainian refugees, which is what we need to be doing ... is something that we really need to keep in mind.”
She said that when the US speaks about “accepting refugees”, the country needs to ensure that “we are meaning it for everybody, no matter where you come from”.
