Trump Says What No One Else Will: 'Media's Helping Smugglers Traffic Children'
President Donald Trump is turning the tables.
After a month of incessant attacks in the mainstream media over his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting immigrants trying to enter the country illegally, Trump lambasted the “fake news” outlets as actually helping the smuggling rings that prey on illegals and their children.
And he didn’t hold back.
.@realDonaldTrump: "Keep in mind, those who apply for asylum legally at ports of entry are not prosecuted. The fake news media back there doesn’t talk about that. They are fake! They are helping, they are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe." pic.twitter.com/QzMGpnXIhu
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 19, 2018
“Keep in mind, those who apply for asylum legally at ports of entry are not prosecuted,” Trump said in a speech Tuesday. “The fake news media back there doesn’t talk about that. They are fake! They are helping, they are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe.
“They know it. They know exactly what they’re doing, and it should be stopped. Because what’s going on is very unfair to the people of our country. And they violate the law, people that come in violate the law, they endanger their children in the process. And frankly, they endanger all of our children.”
In the speech, at the National Federation of Business 75th anniversary celebration in Washington, Trump explained the situation in a way that was clearer than any television news segment featuring weeping children.
He explained it in terms of American law.
In essence, the administration’s actions are governed by a 2016 apeals court ruling that requires the federal government to release children who are caught crossing the border illegally into the custody of a sponsor rather than detaining them with their parents. If no sponsor is found, the children are cared for by the Department of Health and Human Services or a contractor.
If the children are caught with their parents, that naturally means they must be separated, since the “zero tolerance” policy means the adults are held for prosecution.
As Trump put it to the NFIB, in a segment of the speech posted by Fox News Insider (it’s worth watching):
“Under current law, we have only two policy options to respond to this massive crisis.
“We can either release all illegal immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America, or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry. Those are the only two options: Totally open borders, or criminal prosecution for lawbreaking.”
The goal of the Democrat-allied mainstream media is to force the federal government under Trump into the first option, which is behind virtually every heart-rending account of “family separation” that’s hitting Americans now.
But that’s exactly what child traffickers and smugglers are hoping for.
Obviously, the idea of releasing illegal immigrants that arrive in family units – or fake family units — would only increase the number of adults encouraged to place their children at risk in a border-crossing to help their own chances of making it without being detained.
And that, in turn, will mean a boom in business for exactly the kind of cartels that consider helpless children to be one more commodity – a commodity the mainstream media seems to be doing its best to supply by its constant propaganda on the subject.
In other words, the mainstream media is actually endangering the very kind of children it claims to be so concerned about.
The kicker is Trump’s statement that those who apply for asylum legally at points of entry are not prosecuted. What the current policy is doing is applying the law as it was written and codified by the courts during Democrat and Republican presidential administrations.
The “separation of families” storyline might not be not the outright hoax “hands up, don’t shoot,” was. But there’s no denying that the mainstream media is bringing all of its powers to bear to force a presidential administration that was elected by the American people to back down from fulfilling one of its key promises – to bring illegal immigration under control.
Fortunately for Trump supporters – and the good of the country – the president is turning the tables.
How it all plays into the November midterms is an open question, but considering Trump’s record against the news media so far, it might be better than anyone thinks.
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