The elite media has been largely dishonest in reporting on this issue in order to attack President Trump.
1 – The elite media says that family separation and incarceration of illegal migrant minors started under President Trump because of his zero tolerance policy. This is not the case and they well know it. For example, the Washington Post March 11, 2015 under Obama, wrote about this very issue:
2 – The truth about family separation. The elite media leaves out all of the important details which bring clarity to this issue. The vast majority of Central American children who show up at the border are unaccompanied by their parents. The Border Patrol says that up to 85%, nearly 207,000 children from 2007 -2015 were unaccompanied when apprehended at the border; meaning that that an overwhelming number show up already separated from their family.
Parents who do walk their children across the North Mexico Desert can be prosecuted for endangering their children. The reports are that dozens die every month trying to cross the border. While an unknown number of Central American girls are sold into sex slavery via human traffickers, up to 80% of minor girls apprehended at the border have been sexually assaulted.
Parents can be detained until trial, but children can only be detained for 20 days because of the 1997 court ruling Flores v. Reno, at which time children are moved to a non-detention like facility or placed with any relatives that can be found in the United States, hence they are “separated from their parents”. Such has been the case long before Trump was President.
3 – Media reports of Trump backing down on “family separation” are wildly misleading. What they are not telling you is that Trump’s executive order states that the few minor border crossers who enter with parents must stay with their parents for as long as it takes, thus ending the separation, however, an executive order cannot supersede current law so this executive order will almost certainly be overturned by the courts.
4 – The conditions in which many illegal migrant children were held were much worse under Obama while Democrats and the elite media kept it quiet. The main reason for this is that more suitable and luxurious dorm like accommodations were not built up yet as they are today.
If you want to see some of the conditions that these children were held while Obama was president you can see for yourself HERE.
5 – President Obama said the same thing when he was in office that Trump is saying today. He also prosecuted many illegal border crossers:
