Democrats have hit hard on the narrative that President Donald Trump is taking children from parents and holding people in cages. That narrative has largely gone unchallenged in the media despite that fact that the Obama Administration had the same facilities and also separated families. Now, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee had the ultimate tweet disaster by posting pictures of the objectionable conditions. The pictures turned out to be from the Obama Administration. They deleted the first picture after people noted the problem, but then reportedly posted an additional Obama-era picture.
The members posted the pictures with a tweet stating, “Last week, members of our committee visited a detention center at the southern border and discovered grotesque treatment of children. This week, we are examining the inhumane treatment of the children in these detention centers.”
The mishap succeeded in highlighting the counterpoint that is often brushed over by critics as they portray the Trump policies as unprecedented.
That does not make any of these conditions or policies acceptable but the pictures capture the hypocrisy of members who said little during the Obama Administration, which deported far greater numbers.
Trump pounced with a tweet stating “House Democrats are promoting their “civil rights” hearing on “kids in cages” and “inhumane treatment” with a photo from 2014, when Joe Biden was Vice President. So dishonest!”
Here in red is the portion of the 2014 photo used by House Democrats today.
AP FACT CHECK: 2014 photo wrongly used to hit Trump policieshttps://www.apnews.com/a98f26f7c9424b44b7fa927ea1acd4d4 …2,1985:30 PM – Jul 9, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy
This is much more of a disaster than at first blush.
Congrssional democrats are proving themselves either stupid or evil. And it is far more likely the latter.
Either they do not know that these pictures were from the Obama administration – and they are stupid,
or they do know – and they are evil.
Given that they just returned from a trip to the southern border and have just seen the CURRENT conditions, the excuse that this was a mistake is thin.
Having just returned – they should have their own pictures that they KNOW when are where were taken.
Whether it is DHS, ICE, or FBI, the executive is supposed to enforce the laws as written.
Whether Obama or Trump.
What is constantly represented as “Policy changes” is following the actual law.
Congress has declared unauthorized crossing of the border a crime.
We detain people who are accused of comiting crimes and are a flight risk.
If they have children – they will be separated from those children.
If congress does not like that – it can change the laws.
If it does not like the conditions that alleged criminals are detained in – it can provide the resources to provide better care.
Trump has asked for more resources, more beds and more fascilities to alleviate over crowding and lack of resources.
Like everyone else who has committed a crime – these people had choices.
They were free to stay in their own countries,
They were not obligated to drag their families thousands of miles through dangerous conditions to cross US borders where they would likely be caught and detained.
They knew the consequences of their actions ahead of time.
At the very least they knew they were tresspassing.
Overall I strongly favor greater immigration.
But we change the law to accomplish that.
We do not try to get our way by encouraging lawbreaking.
I expect our government – state federal and local to enforce ALL laws – vigorously – and without discretion. That is part of how we distinguish good laws from bad. When a law is unworkable – it is not the role of law enforcement to “give up” to do what legislators do not have the courage to do themselves and rewrite the law so that it works.
The responsibility for enforcing the law as written lies with the executive – law enforcement.
The responsibility to write good laws rests with the legislature.
Whatever you think is going wrong at our southern border – the responsibility lies with CONGRESS.