Barack Obama also separated children from parents and used detention facilities but went scot-free
The outrage on mainstream media and political class over images of migrant children, locked up in "cages" and frightened, might force you to believe that President Donald Trump does not care about children being separated from their families. However, the truth is that the same policies were followed by the previous administrations. Both the Obama and the Bush administrations prosecuted over half a million undocumented immigrants and separated families in the process.
Back in 2014, thousands of youngsters were detained at the US border when President Obama called the shots. The fact that the Obama administration also used detention centers is completely lost in the debate and goes without acknowledgment, reported The Daily Caller.
After arriving unaccompanied at the border that year, children were locked up at shelters in Texas and Arizona for further processing.
Both the presidents were caught in a conundrum with no adult or legal guardian alongside the youngsters, as they did not know what to do with them when they arrived at the border.
Immigrant children who are coming in from Mexico, unaccompanied, can be turned back then and there itself, but those coming from farther places such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have to be given a chance at a court hearing.
Due to this, until pending cases are resolved and ones pertaining to them are arbitrated, there is no choice but to place them in shelters for the said period of time. However, this has lead to a cascade of criticism for both the current and the previous administrations.
About 32,372 unattended minors have arrived at the border under the Trump administration in the 2018 fiscal year. The number has more than tripled since last year. While under the Obama administration, an estimated 60,000 unaccompanied children arrived in 2014 - four times the number of minors that touched the border in 2012. Obama was widely accused at the time of pushing children to take a chance at crossing the border with 'soft' immigration policies.
Fast forward to 2018, and President Trump is being slammed by establishment media for allegedly using the minors as "political pawns" to force Democrats to sign new immigration laws which are presumed to be considerably tougher.
Children have been separated from their parents and kept in separate chambers even during the Obama administration, but no one seemed to take heed of the fact back then. Trump is bearing the brunt of criticism for the policies laid down by the previous administration ever since he announced the "zero tolerance" border program.
According to the said policy, everyone who turns up at the border undocumented is prosecuted, with more than 2,000 children being taken away from their parents until cases are resolved.
But, according to the law, children are not allowed to be held in migrant detention for a long period and hence are separated from their parents who stay there and face prosecution. Officials in the Obama administration have brazenly denied ever separating parents from their children, but photos obtained by Meaww tell a different story altogether.
On the other hand, President Obama's domestic policy adviser Cecilia Muñoz asserted that their administration considered a policy similar to Trump's "zero tolerance" but apparently decided not to go through with it. "The morality of it was clear — that's not who we are," she said. In fact, the Obama administration also faced backlash for detaining some families indefinitely as their cases took years to arbitrate.
The procedures for prosecuting illegal immigrants have been in place for multiple administrations, a fact which the mainstream media will not tell you about. Both the Obama and the Bush administrations prosecuted over half a million undocumented immigrants and separated families in the process.
Instead, you get to see crocodile tears rolling down Rachel Maddow's cheeks, trying to emotionally appeal to her liberal audience as she scours through the photos, as facts and logic do not work so well in propaganda.
Photos that were taken during a media tour back in 2014 under the Obama administration show detention facilities almost identical to the ones that have surfaced now.
As the Daily Caller previously reported, “Obama administration prosecuted nearly 500,000 illegal immigrants between FY 2010-FY2016. They referred 1/5 of illegals for prosecution, which often resulted in family separations.”
The difference between the two leaders, however, is that President Trump went ahead and signed an executive order Wednesday that will put a stop to the separation of families, while Obama did nothing at his time to make amends.
Trump said that the zero-tolerance policy would continue, but that he “didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated”.
Still don't believe us? Here are some more photos.
