While traveling to Mississippi to rally for Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a tight Senate race, President Donald Trump on Monday got pegged with repeated questions about how law enforcement has been handling migrants near the southern U. S. border.\u2026<\/b>
\nWhile traveling to Mississippi to rally for Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a tight Senate race, President Donald Trump on Monday got pegged with repeated questions about how law enforcement has been handling migrants near the southern U. S. border. Answering reporters’ questions on Nov. 26, Trump defended tear gassing migrants at the border, when a group of migrants had reportedly rushed the border on Nov. 25. The decision to unleash tear gas upon the migrants, among them women and children, was met with fierce backlash.
\u00ab\u00a0They were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas,\u00a0\u00bb Trump said Monday per CBS News. \u00ab\u00a0Here’s the bottom line: Nobody is coming into our country unless they come in legally.\u00a0\u00bb The White House did not immediately respond to Elite Daily’s request for additional comment on Trump’s statement. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials had responded to a group of migrants that they said had attempted to cross the border illegally and attacking agents.
\u00ab\u00a0Over 1,000 individuals who were part of the so-called caravan attempted to cross illegally into the U. S.,\u00a0\u00bb and allegedly assaulted U. S. officials, said the CBP in a statement provided to Elite Daily by email Tuesday. \u00ab\u00a0As a response to the assaults and to defuse this dangerous situation, trained CBP personnel employed less-lethal devices to stop the actions.\u00a0\u00bb
But regardless, the optics didn’t go over well. Thanks to photos and videos that have gone viral showing the plight of families on the caravan’s journey, much attention has been drawn to the fact that women and children represent a significant chunk of those fleeing their countries for safety. Part of the reason so many vulnerable people are traveling in a pack, in fact, is because there is said to be safety in numbers for a large group like this, which would otherwise be vulnerable to violence or exploitation. Most of the refugees are fleeing violence and hardship in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
Later Monday, Trump was asked about tear gassing migrants again, and for the second time in a few hours, defended the CBP’s decision.
In a video posted by ABC News, the network’s Karen Travers asked the president specifically about the vulnerable populations who were affected by the gassing. \u00ab\u00a0How did you feel when you saw the images of women and children running from the tear gas yesterday?\u00a0\u00bb she asked Trump.
\u00ab\u00a0Well I do say, why are they there?\u00a0\u00bb Trump said, and claimed that the tear gas used on Sunday was \u00ab\u00a0a very minor form of the tear gas itself.\u00a0\u00bb
He continued, \u00ab\u00a0Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it\u2019s going to be formed? And in some cases, you know, they’re not the parents,\u00a0\u00bb he added, suggesting that some of the people pictured with children might have been staged, calling them \u00ab\u00a0grabbers.\u00a0\u00bb The White House did not respond to Elite Daily’s request for additional comment on his remarks.
Trump on Monday also referred to the migrant caravan as \u00ab\u00a0stone cold criminals,\u00a0\u00bb despite the photos and videos circulating of children and families.
On Tuesday, an article in The Washington Times noted that the Obama administration also used tear gas along the border. However, data on use of force between 2012 and 2018 provided to Elite Daily by CBP shows that while the use of tear gas under Obama did hit a high in 2013, the use of tear gas in 2018 under Trump has since exceeded that number.
It’s worth noting, too, that in 2017, despite having a 17-year low in apprehensions at the border, the CBP reported 996 total incidents of use of \u00ab\u00a0less-lethal\u00a0\u00bb force (such as tear gassing) \u2014 more than in 2012, a year that saw more apprehensions .
\u00ab\u00a0If you changed the laws, you wouldn’t be having this problem,\u00a0\u00bb Trump added in his comments to Travers Monday. \u00ab\u00a0I think the funding of the wall has never looked better.\u00a0\u00bb But as Congress gets ready to hand the reins of power to Democrats in the House with the new year, the prospect of a wall is looking anything but certain.<\/p>\n