Some of the mainstream media would undoubtedly like their viewers to think that President Trump authorized a tear gas attack on defenseless asylum-seeking mothers and children singing kumbaya just south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
While it is true U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents used tear gas, the action and their reasoning to do so included a number of factors that these mainstream media outlets are conveniently leaving out.
1. The tear gas was used in response to migrants throwing rocks and other materials at the agents.
President Trump previously remarked that any violence to the border patrol agents, including the throwing of rocks, would be interpreted like the firing of a weapon. A subsequent and swift response would then be expected.
From Politico, earlier this month:
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. military would treat any rocks or stones being thrown by asylum-seeking migrants slowly heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border as firearms.
“I will tell you, anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm,” Trump said during an announcement that his administration next week would release a “comprehensive” executive action on immigration that will include changes to the asylum-seeking process.
And, via Fox News, rocks were thrown by the migrants prior to the tear gas being used:
U.S. border agents shot several rounds of tear gas after some migrants attempted to penetrate various points along the border and threw what appeared to be rocks at U.S. authorities.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement that some migrants “attempted to breach legacy fence infrastructure along the border and sought to harm CBP personnel by throwing projectiles at them.
— Advertisement — “As I have continually stated, DHS will not tolerate this type of lawlessness and will not hesitate to shut down ports of entry for security and public safety reasons,” Nielsen said. “We will also seek to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who destroys federal property, endangers our frontline operators, or violates our nation’s sovereignty.”
“The Americans responded with tear gas after the migrants hit them with projectiles, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Twitter,” Reuters reports.
2. Most of the migrant caravan members are men. This included the 500 or so members who violently rushed the border. According to some reports, young men make up nearly 90 percent of the group.
Fox News plainly reported: “Within an hour on Sunday, the group from the caravan that rushed toward the border largely dispersed. Most of the migrants in the group were men.”
BizPac Review added:
President Trump threatened to close the US border as chaos erupted in San Ysidro, California when hundreds of migrants — mostly men — rushed the border to enter the United States illegally.
Border patrol agents shot several rounds of tear gas after migrants threw rocks and bottles at them and tried to illegally cross onto sovereign US territory.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) issued a statement saying it refused entry to migrants who tried to breach the border. About 90% of the migrants in the various caravans are young men, but some women with small children are scattered among the group, according to multiple press reports.
Mainstream media outlets trying to paint the weekend border incident as President Trump utilizing tear gas on women and children is plain wrong. While women and children were affected, the use of the tear gas was due to hundreds of men rushing the border and, at one point, even successfully climbing over the first border wall.