Accused by the media of child abuse against illegal immigrants flooding across the U.S. border, Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen pushed back, insisting the children separated from their illegal immigrant children at the U.S. border were provided all necessary amenities. Today’s media uproar blames the Trump administration for enforcing U.S. border laws, incarcerating legal-age parents, while, at the same time, detaining their offspring in government facilities near the Mexican border. While there’s no question that the issue of separating children from their parents is unpopular with about 66% of Democrats, Republicans and independents, Nielsen mirrored the White House get-tough border policy that tries to enforce U.S. border laws. White House officials have been now charged with child abuse, separating children from parents enforcing border laws.
What doesn’t sit right with most folks is the common sense aspect of separating children from their parents. Media pics and videos of crying children have helped turn the public against the Trump “crackdown” on the flow of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Herding some 2,000 children into a shuttered Walmart in Browsville, Texas, attests, if nothing else, to the gruesome reality facing immigrants, crossing the U.S. border illegally. If you take the issue of illegal immigration on its face, most people agree that it’s unacceptable. Yet when you ask most folks about the practice of separating children from their parents, it’s a black eye on Immigration Customs Enforcement [ICE], despite the fact that it’s U.S. law. “How is this not child abuse,” the press asked Nielsen, referring to ICE practice of incarcerating parents and detaining children illegally crossing the border.
Trump administration officials know that the “separation” issue hands Democrats an early Christmas gift before the November Midterm elections. Just when Gallup’s last poll showed Trump with a jump in approval ratings to 45%, the highest since taking office Jan. 20, 2017, Trump creates a PR nightmare dealing with the latest immigration crisis at the border. Press officials don’t ask whether parents who cross the border illegally engage in child endangerment subjecting their offspring to the risks associated with illegal border crossings. “Be more specific, please,” said Nielsen, regarding accusations of child abuse. “We have high standards. We give them meals. We give them education. We give them medical care. There is videos. There is TVs. I’ve visited the detention center myself. That would be my answer to that question,” said Nielsen, putting the question back to the press.
Knowing the risks of illegal border crossings, it’s reasonable to ask whether or not the parents engaged in reckless endangerment of their children. Blaming ICE and the White House for child abuse, Democrats and their media friends have the perfect issue on which to run for the Midterm elections: The heartless White House. Viral videos of children in detention crying for their parents also doesn’t help Trump’s PR nightmare going forward. From April 19, 1,995 children have been separated from 1,940 families since May 31. Trump said yesterday he doesn’t want to run a day care center at the border yet hasn’t done much to deal with the facts on the ground. As long as ICE incarcerates parents and place their children into detention facilities, the problems is going to persist. U.S. immigration laws don’t permit children to go with their illegal immigrant parents to jail.
Human rights groups claim that most illegal immigrants are fleeing from drug gangs and deserve asylum under current U.S. laws. If that’s the case, then it’s impossible to find out who’s a legitimate asylum seeker from migratory workers seeking jobs. “It’s a law passed by the United States Congress,” Nielsen told reporters, pushing back on current ICE enforcement efforts. “Rather than fixing the law, Congress asking those of us who enforce the law to turn our backs on the law and not enforce the law. That’s not an answer,” said Nielsen, rejecting the idea that the Trump administration caused the current border problem. What’s different today, from the Obama White House, is that Trump’s cracking down on illegal crossings. Returning to lax Bush-43 or Obama-era border enforcement is the only answer given by human rights groups to fix the problems of child separation.
Trump has a tiger-by-the-tail dealing with an untenable practice of separating children from their parents at the border. Whatever the long-term fix in Congress, the U.S. government can’t continue to escalate the current government child detention centers at the border. Determining whether illegal immigrants are really legitimate asylum-seekers is no easy matter. Most illegal immigrants crossing the border are looking for work and a better way of life, not fleeing from drug cartels. While there’s nothing wrong with that, the U.S. still has border laws to enforce. Democrats and the press want the Trump White House to revert back to the Obama days of look-the-other way. Whether or not Congress can fashion new legislation, Trump has a real PR nightmare happening on the U.S. border. Letting it continue hands the Democrats everything they need for November.
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