The Political Insider

One look at social media will tell you that President Donald Trump is needlessly and cruelly separating illegal immigrant parents from their children at America’s southern border. The liberal media will tell you that this is Trump’s policy he instituted and that it’s inhumane and unlawful.

All these claims, unsurprisingly, are untrue.

Here’s the truth about what’s going on at the border, and why it’s happening.

1. The policy of separating children from their parents has been in place since 1997

Contrary to what every liberal on Facebook is claiming, President Donald Trump did NOT institute the policy of separating illegal immigrant children from their parents. He’s simply following a law that’s been on the books for more than 20 years.

In 1997, the federal government agreed to a settlement in the Supreme Court case City of Boerne vs. Flores that unaccompanied illegal immigrant children cannot be held in custody beyond 20 days. However, the settlement said nothing about children who crossed the border with their parents, so the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals further ruled that accompanied children also cannot be held beyond 20 days. This means that the government either must release entire families, or separate parents from children – and which scenario happens is entirely up to the parents, as explained in the next point. (RELATED: Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Immigration Policy Isn’t New – Obama Did the Same Thing).

2. Immigrant families seeking asylum are not being separated 

Contrary to what every open border liberal believes, not all immigrants are the same, and not all should be treated equally under the law.

Immigrants who come to U.S. points of entry seeking asylum are not breaking the law and therefore are not detained. They are processed through ICE, and their children get to stay with them.

Families who cross the border illegally, on the other hand, are finally being treated as what they are: criminals. They are detained, and if they agree to be deported, their children go with them. However, if they choose to apply for asylum, they will be held longer than 20 days – and once those 20 days are up, their children have to be removed per the law that was established in 1997.

3. Immigrant detention facilities were bad before Trump

A lot of photos have been making the rounds depicting the awful conditions at ICE detention facilities. However, many of the people sharing those photos are conveniently leaving out the fact that they were taken during Obama’s presidency. (RELATED: Illegal Immigrant Activists Share ANOTHER Fake Image of Kids in a Cage).

Unfortunately, sharing images like the above without any context feeds into the liberal lie that Trump is entirely to blame for what’s going on. Furthermore, Trump adviser Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John Kelly both did Trump a huge disservice when they stated that the administration was separating families as a deterrent to illegal immigration. That’s stupid and untrue. The deterrent is arrest and deportation – the separation of families is an unfortunate consequence under the law.

In summation, the liberal media are lying. Trump is not forcibly ripping children from the clutches of their parents; he’s simply enforcing a law that has been on the books for more than 20 years. Furthermore, Congress can fix the policy whenever they want. But fixing it would mean that Democrats could no longer use innocent children as political footballs in their war against Trump, and nothing is more important to liberals than making the other side look bad.

Source: Daily Wire