The Patriot Post® · Fake News: Blaming Trump for Obama's Policy
In an apparent response to President Donald Trump’s call to pressure Democrats into getting serious on securing the border — specifically conceding on funding for a border wall — leftists spread an image across social media of illegal alien children sleeping in an ICE detention cell. In a bit of poetic irony, Barack Obama’s former speechwriter Jon Favreau also shared the image, declaring, “Look at these pictures. This is happening right now, and the only debate that matters is how we force our government to get these kids back to their families as fast as humanly possible.” The glaring problem: The photograph was from an article published by The Arizona Republic in 2014. And who was president then?
Trump responded to the fake news, writing, “Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires. Dems must agree to Wall and new Border Protection for good of country… Bipartisan Bill!” The whole episode sounds a lot like the recent BIG Lie about Trump supposedly calling immigrants “animals,” when he was specifically referring to the violent MS-13 gang.
Aside from this latest fake news episode, the controversy over separating illegal alien children from their parents is a result of current immigration law — law that Trump is calling on Congress to change. And while the law clearly isn’t an ideal means of dealing with the often confusing situations that can arise, the responsibility must ultimately lie with those illegal alien parents who are knowingly breaking U.S. immigration law. Furthermore, fault also lies with Obama and his unconstitutional implementation of DACA, which only served to encourage more illegals to bring children with them, sometimes as cover.
In an effort to dissuade families from illegally immigrating, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently warned, “If you cross the border unlawfully … then we will prosecute you… If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we’ll prosecute you. … If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”
The truth is Trump has called for strong enforcement of the U.S. border, in part via building a wall, and has declared his desire to seek a legislative solution on DACA, both of which Democrats have resisted because they’d rather have a political wedge issue. Democrats are the ones most responsible for creating and exacerbating this problem by their continued campaign to intentionally undermine U.S. immigration law. So they can spare us their phony outrage.