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The Outrage for Next Week: They’re Literally Gassing Children at the Border
Late on a Sunday night, we’re starting to see next week’s outrage story taking hold: There are children present in the migrant caravan and the U.S. Border Police are sending tear gas into it, and mothers and their children are being affected.
Are these the brutal young men you keep referring to @realDonaldTrump? Cuz it looks like you are gassing women and children!!! https://t.co/urahBhfAm1
— Amy Siskind 🏳️🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) November 25, 2018
Those of you defending tear gassing children should probably unfollow me. And also rethink your lives.
— Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) November 26, 2018
We already have concentration camps for immigrant children in this country, so gassing them was the next logical step I guess.
Happy holidays
— Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) November 26, 2018
There is, as there always is, more to the story than simply “the United States is gassing children.” What else is happening at the border? Well, just this:
Video shows migrants rushing across the Tijuana River south of the U.S.-Mexico border as the port of entry at San Ysidro was closed Sunday. https://t.co/hQE7Y2le21 pic.twitter.com/MhLTuZ1OtS
— ABC News (@ABC) November 26, 2018
Hundreds try to storm the border. Expect significant US response #tijuana pic.twitter.com/0T50XUnXtY
— emma murphy (@emmamurphyitv) November 25, 2018
The United States is now in the tough position Israel has found itself in countless times: You cannot storm a sealed border; so how does a country stop a mob of people attempting to do so? Asking nicely doesn’t work, but when you use non-violent means like tear gas and rubber bullets (there are no reports of the latter being used), world condemnation comes rolling in. What options do countries have when trying to defend their own borders from those trying, violently and forcefully, to penetrate them?
Breitbart Texas editor (and my friend) Brandon Darby expressed what is likely a widely held belief among Americans,
We can’t allow people to enter our country in this manner. I’m sympathetic to the plight of migrants, but we can’t allow this. Not like this. https://t.co/aNxzpW7eZz
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) November 26, 2018
Critics of the President and those in the media will frame this story as simply “Trump is gassing children” and in so doing, they will undercut their own trustworthiness further. These aren’t children randomly present at the border; they were put there by their parents, who joined a mob attempting to break into a country illegally. They are not “seeking asylum,” the above videos are not how one goes about doing so.
There is a conversation about how best to repel these kinds of mobs and one we perhaps should have had before this evening, given how much-advanced notice we had that a caravan would be arriving at our border. But to paint this as simply a war crime is plainly and profoundly dishonest, and unfortunately for those trying to set that narrative, most Americans will recognize that fact at first glance. And so, critics of the President remain one of his greatest assets, even as chaos unfolds on our border.
Published in Immigration
Someone has to think of a creative solution to all of this. The crime and corruption in all of those countries (except maybe Panama and Costa Rica) is a disaster. We can get really mean, like we probably should have decades ago, or we can get creative and try something new. What other alternative is there?
Also, please legalize all hard drugs, yesterday.
It probably doesn’t matter, but I know there’s a bunch of libertarians among the college-educated in Guatemala.
I’m glad they are gassing them. Maybe they will stay home.
Annex central America.
One quibble with your post. When the neighboring country is not willing to do everything they can to stop these people.
Then what we are doing is the only thing we can do, short of taking life.
We are not only being besieged by the people at the boarder. We have all of the left and the world govs cheering them on, and aiding and abetting them.
Yup and the progressives that ignored it in 2013 are going crazy, calling out specific pictures on social media…saying they hope these cops dont ever get a good night’s sleep and calling them pig f—ers as well. Now we have joined countries that have gassed civilians. Iran (and basically every country in the world) has used tear gas against civilians yet no one is mentioning Iran in any kind of list. Tear gas is not the same as the mustard and like gases from WW1, the gases used to mass murder in WW2, or the gases used by Assad in Syria. The derangement is sick, and the biggest problem is when something really bad does happen the American populace will be numb to the complaint because of the Chicken Little effect
One of the worst ideas ever expressed on Ricochet.
We are increasingly fighting drugs and gang violence in this country because we won’t fight it over there. Would we be any worse off sending Marines and illegals to combat gang violence in Honduras rather than California? How about drone strikes on Mexican drug cartel targets?
I need to point out that they have to enter our country “in this manner” because there’s no organized legal method for them to do so.
Flashback: Obama border patrol agents used pepper spray
They are supposed to ask for asylum in the first country they step foot in. Secondarily, you’re supposed to ask for asylum at a port of entry.
This all happened because Obama gave up on jailing the ones with kids. I can’t blame him. It’s an unmanageable situation, partly because there is a shortage of immigration lawyers and judges. Supposedly they need to double the number of immigration judges on the border from 350 to 700. Sounds pretty expensive.
The only way Columbia improved was they got rid of Pablo Escobar with vigilante special forces. That is just a fact.
I am not the least bit sympathetic to the plight of the so-called migrants. They are an invading army and should be treated accordingly.
Because the mostly young men of the invading group has thrown the children and women to the front.
And we were, rightly so, attempting to agree with the government of the neighboring country to control it.
Incoming Mexican government reneges on deal with U.S.
So we should machine gun them, right?
I mean if they’re an invading army, they should be repelled, right? You do that with force of arms. Right?
The DailyMail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6429561/Trump-threatens-decisive-action-Mexico-does-not-deport-caravan-migrants-hundreds-storm-border.html
has a lot of interesting pictures of the “women and children” at the border. I am surprised how new their clothes look. These people haven’t walked thousands of miles. Here is an example:
The rocks in both hands are probably the reason for the picture, but what jumps out at me is that this guy’s jeans are in much better shape than mine.
That is actually not in the refugee convention, international law, etc
I’ve heard it before but I don’t think it’s actually the case .
Well would certainly one way to cut down illegal migration.
We can stop that game now, I think. It stopped being about illegal immigration a long time ago.
OK but they can still go to the port of entry and capitalize on our lack of judges and courts for this crap.
I’ll bite Fred. ‘Machine gunning’ isn’t necessary. Well placed single round fired at rock-throwers and those sitting atop fence (rubber first, then actual rounds if behavior is not altered), coupled with mining border with dye or traceable chemical tags (if chemical tag is detected, asylum request was not properly applied for – request/hearing denied) and continued use of tear gas seems appropriate at this time with more lethal options to follow at our discretion.
Are you sure that’s sufficient? This is an army, after all. As was said above:
If it was the Mexican Army attempting to “invade” the United States, I don’t think a single shot, nor some kind of dye mines would be sufficient.
If this is indeed an invading army, and not a group of unarmed migrants with a sizable number of women and children, shouldn’t we treat them accordingly? Should we be using machine guns, napalm, or anything else in our arsenal to stop them?
I mean, our President sent the military to the border for a reason, right?
Yep on the border, thank goodness we have Trump unless the new congress can override him, but I think they are stuck with current law, and would look bad to try and loosen it just because of a caravan and the trouble it has brought. I’m betting that hasn’t put the general voting population in some mood for open borders and hope that even if they oust Trump in 2020, by then a new firmer normal will set in. But if Democrats ever send an overall “sanctuary” message after that, the Central Americans may just start the pressure all over again.
Another angle on this is that Mexico needs to realize that letting the hoard travel its own territory may not turn out well….that we are in the catbird seat and don’t have to “rush.” Migrants we don’t let in, wind up festering in Mexico and becoming their problem as much as ours, so they’d better do something for themselves as much as for us. We ought to offer them police support money or whatever it takes to disincentivize them from playing the role of becoming enablers, as there is really no “neutral” ground on this.
Meanwhile let the caravan sit in Mexico until we determine which people can come in to the U.S. legally via asylum…..which should be less than 10% of them. Unless we want to have borders like Israel, even on humanitarian grounds we must create a situation that will discourage further caravans.
Mexico said they could stay there, if they restricted themselves to the southern two provinces. I wish we could give them some capital, to make those people economically productive and get some education there.
They really do live in hellholes, but what can anybody do about it?
No border, no immigration controls, no country.
The citizens of the US have the right to decide who can cross the border to live here.
The #1 job of the Federal Government is to defend the nation.
Period.
So building a real wall would be a much more humane solution to the problem.
Fred:
“I need to point out that they have to enter our country “in this manner” because there’s no organized legal method for them to do so.”
Fred, you are so funny. A real riot. It’s a wonder where you come up with your strange funny ideas.
These criminals at the border have no right to enter our country. None, Zip, Zero. There is no need for an ‘organized legal method” other than those already in place. If these criminals choose not to use those legal methods already available to them, and try to criminally enter the country then they should be forcefully dealt with.
America absolutely has the right to deal with criminals storming a protective barrier at the border designed to protect American citizens from illegal entry with lethal force. Hopefully lethal force is not necessary. Tear gas in this case is perhaps a more humane way of dealing with this problem. But the problem should be dealt with and these criminals should absolutely not be let into the country.
The Cartel is absolutely ravaging Mexico, Central America and South America. We need to get serious about wiping out all Cartel operations in our country. Completely. America’s (and Europe’s) drug problem is the driving force behind the rise and profitability of the Cartel. The Cartel’s operations are destroying many poor communities here and reeking absolute havoc south of the border.
Legalizing all drugs is not a solution. There are many out there trying to lure the millions of the emotionally wounded into a drug addiction, which can easily happen once one is exposed to hard narcotics. Once hard drugs are legalized, you will have a huge social disaster on your hands with millions upon millions more addicted. Drugs are already destroying the lives of millions already, we do not need to add millions more.
The government sells them at cost making it clear that their fellow citizens are helping them kill themselves. No socialized rehab.
The thing that changed my mind on this stuff are the documentaries on National Geographic about the drug trade, and the immutable fiscal dynamics of enforcing hard drug laws.
For what it’s worth, Megan McCartle says that the carteles have so much capital now, if hard drugs are legalized they will just go into other forms of organized crime.
Mises.org is right about everything.
Then why do we need you around? We can just get a robot to repost stuff from Mises.org, since they are always right about everything?
Rufus, you remind me of a fundamentalist preacher, only they sometimes talk about things besides the Bible. Preaching the Gospel According to Mises every time you show up gets old quickly.