The AP’s Deceptive and Disingenuous Story Uses Obama Administration Events to Attack President Trump

To the great and everlasting shame of the Obama administration (this field is rather crowded, what with Fast & Furious and Benghazi and the Syrian genocide and red lines and the IRS and the Iran nuclear deal and AACA and…) in the last couple of years of it maladministration it encouraged unaccompanied minors to illegally enter the United States. One suspects this was part of a plan to create facts to support legalized a few million illegals on the grounds they were either “children” or the relatives/families of said “children.” Eventually, the Obama administration was overcome by its own success and it had to start detaining these unaccompanied minors–most of which are 16- and 17-year-old males.

After being utterly supine for eight years, the Associated Press suddenly decided to commit an act of pseudo-journalism by looking for old lawsuits involving detained unaccompanied minors and trying to tie them to Trump.

Immigrant children as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in Virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells.

The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings that include a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens jailed there for months or years. Multiple detainees say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads.
…
In addition to the children’s first-hand, translated accounts in court filings, a former child-development specialist who worked inside the facility independently told The Associated Press this week that she saw kids there with bruises and broken bones they blamed on guards. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly discuss the children’s cases.

In court filings, lawyers for the detention facility have denied all allegations of physical abuse.

Many of the children were sent there after U.S. immigration authorities accused them of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.

Notice how smoothly they slide in a court case from 2016 and imply that it is somehow tied to current administration policy. In fact, if you don’t parse it carefully you can easily miss the dates of the events and then this happens.

What were their crimes? A 16-year-old was driving without ID. A 17-year-old entered the U.S. illegally, fleeing Central American gangs.

For this they were called “wetback” and “pendejo,” suffocated and driven to suicide. https://t.co/3F6gYIfRWV

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) June 21, 2018

And one of their reporters, eager to suck up to the boss, chimed in:

Abu Ghraib for eighth-graders: https://t.co/0UNcDFDosE pic.twitter.com/e3GkOjLbkV

— Kelly Weill (@KELLYWEILL) June 21, 2018

*during the Obama administration https://t.co/azrClHG2l5

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 21, 2018

Guys, when you’ve misrepresented an anti-Trump story to the extent that Cooke feels obligated to correct you, you’ve really jumped the shark.

The spirit of Abu Ghraib lives. In Virginia. https://t.co/zVo4ZT5KfF

— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) June 21, 2018

And some pushback resulted

For the record, this is a lie–these (terrible) abuses happened during the Obama administration, and were in no way related to Trump. This person has admitted as much later, but is leaving it up b/c he wants the misinformation to circulate.

National editor of a major news site. https://t.co/Ip03e3TIwm

— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) June 21, 2018

This is the national editor of @thedailybeast lying about an article that *very clearly* states that the abuse took place during the Obama administration. If you’re screen grabbing paragraphs, you can’t pretend you just read the headline and assumed it was Trump. https://t.co/Lp7t8esK0t

— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) June 21, 2018

People tweeting this horrific piece detailing abuse of illegal immigrant children should check the dates on the allegations (hint they’re during the Obama administration) https://t.co/d41pmnPUXB

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) June 21, 2018

Immigrant children at detention center sue for 2015 and 2016 abuses including being strapped to a chair naked with sack over head.

Word count “Trump” – 5
Word count “Obama” – 0https://t.co/b34T2G9w9H

ht @JammieWF

— Razor (@hale_razor) June 21, 2018

Trump’s “animal” comments about violent gang members were made 3 weeks ago. The lawsuits alleging the abuses mentioned in the story were filed in 2017, and those abuses–per the very story you’re linking–occurred in 2015 and 2016. Awesome journalisming. https://t.co/cYRYTOsST2

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 21, 2018

Perfect example of why media should not reflexively be trusted on border story. Check facts. This journalist goes out of his way to falsely characterize events from Obama admin as having happened during Trump administration. https://t.co/lRQftSLqYS

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) June 21, 2018

*Lived. In 2016. Under Obama. Every single fact alleged in the lawsuit on which this AP article is based occurred before Trump became president. https://t.co/RV4aCI9Fsi

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 21, 2018

but even that could not get a retraction.

I should’ve said “who Trump calls animals,” not “after.” The point remains the same: torturing people because they are suspected of gang activity, which the CURRENT president says makes them less than human

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) June 21, 2018

So Trump, accurately, describing MS-13 as animals resulted in the alleged misconduct at least a year earlier.

Look, I’d be the last person in the world to say that it is impossible for abuses to take place in juvenile detention facilities or group homes. That this happens has zero to do with the real issue which is detaining and deporting unaccompanied minors. You’d also have to be a bit of a credulous moron or a dishonest poltroon to cite a lawsuit written by advocacy lawyers on behalf of detained illegals as anything other than what it is. What this is showing though, is the true agenda: attacking any enforcement of immigration law as illegitimate. These people on the left, and the Never Trump people who abetted them in this attack on the system because of their dislike for Trump, are not interested in families or children or even immigrants. They are interested in open borders.

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