If you were to listen to the mainstream media you would think that Donald Trump was personally at the Mexican-American border stripping all the kids away from their families. You would also think this has never happened before. I mean, that’s what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow says.
It has. It’s been going on for years.
In fact the most infamous photo that got this issue rolling was taken four years ago today, June 18, 2014.
That ladies and gentlemen is what was happening during the Obama administration.
I’m not trying to give Trump a pass here or engage in,” well they did it too.” This is to provide context.
This border crisis is not new, it is not a Trump administration policy, in fact it is law that dates back to the 1990s. And for everyone that didn’t pay attention in civics class, laws are passed by Congress, not the president.
A big difference in media coverage.
So why wasn’t it covered back in 2014 but is now a topic of obsession? Well we all know the answer, this is a club to beat Trump with. Back in 2014, no one was paying attention.
David Martosko, politics editor for the Daily Mail’s American operations admitted that and called on his fellow journalists to fess up.
Political journalism needs a bit of housecleaning on this child border crisis. I’ll start. It was going on during the Obama years in large numbers. I never wrote about it. Was completely unaware, in large part because few reporters were interested enough to create critical mass.
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) June 18, 2018
A Democratic congressmen from Texas told CNN that the Obama administration tried to keep this quiet even as 70,000 children flooded across the border back in 2014.
Rep. Henry Cuellar also puts into context that some of the children held then and held now are coming across on their own, without parents or guardians. He also points out that some are entering the country with adults that are not their parents, a point the New York Times made in a report back in April.
Some migrants have admitted they brought their children not only to remove them from danger in such places as Central America and Africa, but because they believed it would cause the authorities to release them from custody sooner.
Others have admitted to posing falsely with children who are not their own, and Border Patrol officials say that such instances of fraud are increasing.
Of course all of this context is lost in a world where people just want to yell and scream about Donald Trump and blame him for everything.
A different standard for Trump than Obama.
Is the Trump administration putting a greater emphasis on enforcing the law? Yes, in response to a spike in arrivals of this type. Just like it appears Obama did in 2014.
Rich Lowry has an excellent explainer on how the law currently works and how Congress could fix this. Trump himself has said if Congress changes the law, as part of a border bill, he will sign it.
This is a sticky, complicated and messy situation. It is not a simple problem and it won’t have a simple solution.
But for everyone trying to peg this as all the responsibility of President Trump, well, that is fake news.
I’ll leave you with this video of a facility that houses separated children. See for yourself what it is really like.
Thanks Brian- all these hypocritical crocodile tears make me want to scream.
People think they are moraly outraged when it is really their leftist “programing” that is being offended.
Anything the main stream media says about Trump is simply NOT true. All thinking people know this.
Context context context. Thanks Brian for shedding some light on this.
It is hard to get ones head around the Democrats and their stupidity re immigration. The parents are the ones using their children as a lever to try and enter the US illegally and then migrate to Canada where our Liberal compared Democrats are as stupid
So what are we to do to ensure the truth about these matters gets out? It took me a while but I finally get what Trump meant when he referred to “fake news”. It’s not – Brad Pitt says he wa abducted by aliens type fake news – it’s news that, once it has been fed through that big, fat left wing filter, bears little resemblance to the real story. Or it’s non-news, i.e., many of the things that Brian writes about never hit mainstream at all, e,g., pipelines getting a pass in Quebec; foreign money feeding pipeline activists; the PM groping a female reporter and not getting called out. And here’s where it gets worse. I have heard people openly dismiss CFRA radio and commentary by Rob Snow and Brian Lilley as being “radical right wing” propaganda. It’s so frustrating because this is one of the reasons we ended up with that vacuous, air headed moron in the PMO!
This is very concerning that the real story behind these kids at the border is being suppressed. And it’s not just about this story. It took some time, but it finally dawned on me what Trump is talking about when he refers to “fake” news. It’s the end result after a story has been fed through that great big fat left-wing filter so that it becomes non-news. Or, it’s stories that simply never see the light of day, except for a brief moment. Stories like those written about by Brian Lilley, e.g., Quebec easily approves an LNG pipeline w/o having to comply with up/downstream emissions; foreign money funding anti-pipeline activists; the PM’s own metoo moment. While none of this is a big surprise, what are we to do? Seriously.
When will misguided and misinformed stop trying to change history to suit their own agendas? Either you know the thrith about those 2014 photos and you’re propagating a lie to support what Trump is doing, or you’re clueless. Get your facts straight.
Although the photograph of minors being detained is real and does date back to 2014, it does NOT show children separated from their parents by the Obama administration. In June 2014, the image was published as part of numerous news stories covering UNACCOMPANIED children fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries – that means they crossed the border alone, without their parents, in case you get that part. The image was also occasionally published alongside editorial pieces objecting to the presence of the unaccompanied minor children in shelters along the border. The image developed a different and false backstory THIS YEAR to support family separation at the behest of the Trump administration.
Research before you spread lies.
The original lie was that these were photos of kids separated by Trump. Those photos were used to foment outrage.
As for separations, yes, they did happen under Obama. Check the record.