Ocasio-Cortez Jumps In To Help Puerto Rico, Where Storm Relief Never Came
A trip to visit an ailing grandmother turns into part codel, part hurricane relief mission
Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez planned to use the current congressional recess to take a trip to Puerto Rico — long-delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic — to visit her ill abuela.
But what began as a family excursion has quickly taken on the cast of the New York Democrat's more-official duties as she found her abuela — Spanish for “grandmother” — living in poor conditions as the result of deficient disbursement of federal relief funds for Hurricane Maria dating back nearly four years now.
Ocasio-Cortez swept into action, with her trip beginning to look like equal parts an official congressional delegation, or “codel,” trip and a relief mission.
Meanwhile, she documented the whole thing in real time Wednesday for her followers on Twitter.
She began by tweeting a photo of the ramshackle home in which her grandmother has been living.
Ocasio-Cortez followed that up later, tweeting, “We immediately got to work reaching out to community advocates and leaders and following the money. What’s happening to Puerto Ricans is systemic. Much of it can be traced to La Junta, aka the Wall Street-connected fiscal control board that the US gave power to over the island.”
She questioned Trump administration mismanagement on the island: “In the aftermath of María, the Trump admin oversaw two key items: handing millions in public $ to unqualified donor pals (ex Whitefish),” she tweeted, referring to a questionable post-hurricane federal recovery contract for Whitefish Energy, a small company given a $300 million contract while the company itself had ties to Trump and officials in his administration.
“The other was to impose extremely difficult eligibility rules for Puerto Ricans, which allowed mass rejections of recovery fund applications,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
To turn this abysmal situation on the island around for struggling residents — who, are, of course US citizens — will require audits and getting “recovery relief to people ASAP, without the onerous strings,” the congresswoman said in a Tweet.
By the end of the day, Ocasio-Cortez seemed pleased to pass along some good news: “And for the record - my abuela is doing okay. It’s not about us, but about what’s happening to Puerto Rican’s across the island. She had a place to go to and be cared for -- what about the thousands of people who don’t?”