Fact Check: Did Obama Detain 90,000 Children At The Border?
"This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale recently tweeted that “Over 90,000 kids were detained under Obama. And no one cared.”
What followed was a barrage of angry tweets and an attempt by AP prove the claim false by conflating two narratives; the first being that Trump is putting separated migrant children in prison-like conditions – which the left quickly abandoned after it was revealed that viral photographs depicting the caged migrant children actually happened under Obama.
...The “Fact Check”
Two days after Parscale’s tweet, AP published the article “NOT REAL NEWS: Obama didn’t separate 90,000 migrant families,” conflating the “separated families” narrative with the “children in cages” narrative – while pointing to a “conservative website” (which they don’t link to) as the source of the claim.
“The claim, published on a conservative website, was repeated on social media throughout the week as President Donald Trump faced criticism over his administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy” –AP
What website? Who said that? Parscale said detained, not separated.
The false claim appears to stem from a January 2016 Senate subcommittee report that investigated how the Department of Health and Human Services, under the Obama administration, placed thousands of unaccompanied children illegally entering the country.
The subcommittee report found that from October 2013 through 2015 the federal agency placed nearly 90,000 children with a sponsor, after they were detained at the border without a legal guardian. The majority of those sponsors, the report found, were a parent or legal guardian living in the country. –AP
Note how AP simply says that the 90,000 children were placed with a sponsor… Unfortunately, they’re missing a giant link in the chain; the detention centers the kids are placed in first.
Taking a look at the Senate subcommittee report AP references (page 8), since the thrust of the left’s outrage over Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy was originally poor migrant children being forced into cages…
First, we have the 90,000 under Obama figure – but there’s a footnote. Then the report notes that the majority of unaccompanied children over that two-year period were placed with a parent or a legal guardian.
Since the beginning of FY2014, HHS has placed almost 90,000 UACs [Unaccompanied Alien Child] with sponsors in the United States.(31) According to HHS, it places the majority of those UACs with the child’s parent or legal guardian.(32)
Now let’s look at that footnote (31) attached to the 90,000 figure – which directs us to an Office of Refugee Resettlement publication entitled: Unaccompanied Children Released to Sponsors by State..."
Much here, read all!
