It's For The Children

"We need to do it for the children."

You hear this a lot as a political argument.

It is used to justify all sorts of things. Property tax increases. Increases in welfare funding. Increases in teacher salaries, or today, protection of pension plans for teachers.

Nobody wants to do anything but the best for children and it is therefore easy to make children a political pawn.

For example, consider Medicaid spending. When there are discussions about curbing Medicaid spending you almost immediately hear that we can't do that because we will hurt the children. However. the reality is that the elderly receives the largest share of Medicaid spending.

Medicaid spent over $192 billion on people over age 65 last year. Bear in mind this is over and above the $672 billion in Medicare spending for the year.

Medicaid spent $68 billion on children ages 0-18.

On a per capita basis, Medicaid is spending 5 times as much on the elderly as we are on children. In fact, Medicaid spends 3 times as much on the elderly as it does on those between 18-64.

Since it is easy to use children as political pawns it should not be a surprise that the Democrats and the Mainstream Media have all of a sudden decided they should use the children of illegal immigrants to attack Donald Trump.

What is more heart wrenching than to think about the separation of a parent and child?

Never mind that the same basic procedures that involved the care of children of illegal aliens that were followed in the Bush and Obama administrations are still in use under Trump.

You might have seen this image that was circulating on social media and was picked up by some mainstream media outlets that was originally posted by former Obama Senior Advisor Jon Faveau allegedly showing children in cages.

There was only one problem---it was an image taken in 2014 when Obama was President. Favreau had to retract this tweet but the damage was done and we still hear about "children in cages".

For context, this gives you a better perspective of what the children's holding facility looks like in McAllen, Texas. Are these cages or just cost-effective interior walls?

Here is the same facility in 2014 after it was constructed to attempt to deal with the tens of thousands of children who flooded into the country during President Obama's second term.

You might remember the chaos that ensued during that period.

Credit: Breitbart.com

Why is this all an issue right now?

As stated above, the Democrats and the media see it as an excellent way to attack Donald Trump.

However, that does not fully explain their motives.

Most of the illegal immigrant children that end up being separated from their parents end up that way because their parents have applied for refugee asylum in the United States. If an illegal is caught with children in a non-asylum situation they are normally processed quickly with their children and returned to their home country.

Under Obama, it became easy for illegals to seek asylum in the United States. Historically, when we think of refugee status we think of people seeking asylum from political or religious persecution. Under our rules you also have to show that the government of the country you are leaving is complicit in the persecution or is unable to control the conduct of private actors.

During the Obama years more and more people were granted asylum for stating they were escaping gang violence, domestic violence and other forms of criminal behavior. As you might expect, once that word got out to others, more and more people showed up seeking asylum. In addition, if they were caught entering the country, illegals learned to say that they were seeking asylum.

Even better, for those claiming asylum, you were released on your own recognizance until your claim for asylum was investigated and a hearing was held. Since you had a pending claim you also were allowed to work and your children were reunited with you. This might allow you stay in the United States for years due to the backlog of asylum requests.

Even better than that, due to court rulings, if an illegal immigrant child is apprehended at the border with their parents they must be released within 20 days. Obama took the easy path and just released the "parents" and children into our population. This policy also became well understood with the result that more and more illegals showed up with children. Of course, many were not their children.

As you might expect, claims for asylum and the number of children showing up at the border have exploded since the Obama years.

Here are a few mind-blowing facts that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen shared with the National Sheriffs' Association Conference this week.

• There are currently 600,000 asylum cases in backlog right now.
• Before 2011, only 1% of those arriving illegally claimed credible fear and sought asylum. Today that number is 10 times higher.
• From October, 2017 to February, 2018, DHS saw a staggering 315% increase in the number of illegal aliens fraudulently using children to pose as family units.
• Since 1975 the United States has granted refugee asylum status to over 3 million people from around the world. 
• Each year the United States typically admits two-thirds of the resettled refugees in the world. The United States grants more asylum requests than all the other countries for combined.

For further context, consider that we hear all the time in the news about Germany taking in so many refugees. However, last year Germany had 198,300 applications for asylum from refugees. The United States had 331,700---67% higher.

The Trump administration has attempted to put an end to this insanity. Returning sanity to the asylum process whereby we are protecting those that really need refugee status for political or religious persecution. Protecting children who have increasingly become part of a human trafficking scheme to aid illegal immigration. 

What you are seeing from the Democrats and the mainstream media is not so much concern for "the children" but contempt for Trump and the reversal of the dangerous policies of Barack Obama that brought us to where we are today.

Think about it for a second.

There are 600,000 asylum requests in backlog!

Is there anyone left in Latin America?

It used to be that most illegal immigrants who entered the United States were young males from Mexico seeking jobs. We were told we needed the labor and therefore we should overlook the illegal immigration.

In the last decade the flow is increasingly comprised of women, children and "family units" from Central America seeking "asylum". We are now told to overlook the illegal immigration because we are breaking up families.

Donald Trump is trying to do something about this lawlessness. He is trying his best to get Congress to live up to its responsibilities on this issue. He is trying his best to end the chaos on the border. Quite simply, there are many that do want him to succeed on this or any other issue.

If you think that all of this is for the children, think again.



Note: If you would like more background on the subject I recommend you read  "The Truth About Separating Kids" by Rich Lowry in the National Review.