US President Donald Trump has strongly defending the US use of tear gas at the Mexican border to repel a crowd of migrants and blamed the parents of the children who were caught up in t
Colleen Long and Elliot Spagat
November 27 2018 8:47 AM
US President Donald Trump has strongly defending the US use of tear gas at the Mexican border to repel a crowd of migrants and blamed the parents of the children who were caught up in the melee.
Critics denounced the border agents’ action as overkill, but Mr Trump kept to a hard line.
« They were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas, » Mr Trump said.
« Here’s the bottom line: Nobody is coming into our country unless they come in legally. »
At a roundtable meeting in Mississippi on Monday, Mr Trump seemed to acknowledge that children were affected, asking: « Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it’s going to be formed and they were running up with a child? »
He said it was « a very minor form of the tear gas itself » that he assured was « very safe ».
Without offering evidence, he also claimed that some of the women are not really parents but are instead « grabbers » who steal children so they have a better chance of being granted asylum in the US.
The showdown at the San Diego-Tijuana border crossing has thrown into sharp relief two competing narratives about the caravan of migrants hoping to apply for asylum but stuck on the Mexican side.
