Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upstages Dem leaders and gives her own fiery response to Trump speech

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) once again seized the headlines by upstaging the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump's prime-time address on immigration with her own response.

'It is wrong, and it is anti-American!'

Although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) gave the official Democratic response to the president, many liberals were praising Ocasio-Cortez's response on MSNBC as the "real" response.

Ocasio-Cortez registered her displeasure with how Trump was framing the immigration debate and instead demanded it be centered about how to dismantle ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

"No one should feel unsafe in the United States of America, and that includes our amazing and beautiful and productive immigrant community," she told Rachel Maddow.

"And moreover, the one thing the president has not talked about is the fact that he has systematically engaged in the violation of international human rights on our border," she claimed. "He has separated children from their families. He talked about what happened the day after Christmas, on the day of Christmas, a child died in ICE custody.

"The president should not be asking for more money to an agency that has systematically violated human rights," she continued, "the president should be really defending why we are funding such an agency at all.

"Because right now what we are seeing is death," she added. "Right now what we are seeing is the violation of human rights.

"It is systematic, it is wrong, and it is anti-American!" she exclaimed.

"Those women and children trying to come here with nothing but the shirts on their back to create an opportunity and provide for this nation are acting more in an American tradition than this president is right now," she said.

Maddow called her "one of the highest profile members of this new Congress" after her castigation of the president.

Watch part of Ocasio-Cortez's response here: