The Washington Post is now using the descriptor “migrant facility for children” instead of “kids in cages” to illustrate the conditions at the border under the Biden administration. With news of an old facility now being reopened, an article from the Washington Post is calling it a facility for migrant children, despite previously stating that kids were in cages. The facility being reopened was deemed controversial under the Trump administration and was closed due a massive backlash.
The Washington Post article titled, “First migrant facility for children opens under Biden” explains how although Biden campaigned on reversing Trump’s policies on immigration, the decision has been made to reopen the facility. The facility that was created and briefly used under the Trump Administration, will now be used to house hundreds of migrant children.
San Antonio-based immigration lawyer Linda Brandmiller was critical of the decision to reopen the facility stating, “It’s unnecessary, it’s costly, and it goes absolutely against everything [President] Biden promised he was going to do. It’s a step backward, is what it is. It’s a huge step backward.”
During a press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked, “It’s the same facility that was open for a month in the Trump administration. Summer of 2019 that is when Joe Biden said, ‘Under Trump there have been horrifying scenes at the border with kids being kept in cages.'”
“And Kamala Harris said basically, ‘Babies in cages is a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government.’ So how is this any different than that?”
Psaki responded by stating, “We very much feel that way. One, there’s a pandemic going on. I’m sure you’re not suggesting that we have children right next to each other in ways that are not COVID safe, are you?”
When the reporter pressed Psaki further about kids being kept in cages in this facility, she stated, “This is not kids being kept in cages. This is a facility that was opened that’s going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities. It is not a replication, certainly not.”
“That is never our intention of replicating the immigration policies of the past administration, but we are in a circumstance where we are not going to expel unaccompanied minors at the border. That would be inhumane, that is not what we are going to do here as an administration.”
When the facility was used in the summer of 2019, the Washington Post published an article calling the border cells “cages,” and describes Trump as “lashing out” in reaction to over 144,000 arrests in one month. Other articles published by the Washington Post include, “The American tradition of caging children,” “The real reason we’re locking children in cages,” and “Viewing U.S. border cells derided as ‘cages,’ Central American officials pledge more immigration cooperation.”
The Washington Post also published in an article last fall stating that it was the Obama administration that built the cages at the border, and not the Trump administration.
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