The Obama administration used tear gas at the border: an inconvenient truth
Apparently, the use of tear gas at the southern border had become a rather commonplace occurrence during the Obama years, especially in his second term. And yet few if any people seemed to care at the time.
When this fact was pointed out recently by Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the response was predictable:
Host Erin Burnett scoffed at Mr. Judd’s facts, saying the agents were using tear gas against women and children this weekend.
“The tear gas was not deployed at the children,” Mr. Judd countered, saying migrants were attempting to use them as human shields.
That’s what I pointed out yesterday in this post. Children make the very best human shields of all, and the MSM is only too happy to encourage that practice by pretending not to even notice that the tactic exists. Thus, the risk to children increases over time rather than decreases.
It is a sad commentary on our culture wars that both sides have their own “truth”. So while I appreciate these reminders of selective memory, I don’t think they convince the true believers on the left. Their mind is made up: no need for more facts to confuse them — so they believe. But thanks for the reminder, Neo.
The serious tear gas is CS gas (2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile). Obama’s people used pepper spray, that’s normally sprayed into the eyes. Not that I have any direct experience, but I think I’d rather be hit with a mild dose of the former over the latter.
Is it possible to post photos here? I tried to post a WSJ photo of a mom running with her two diaper clad toddlers, with a smoking grenade in the background. Shades of Vietnam propaganda.
Tommy – the link to the Washington Times included these statements:
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, or CS, since 2010, and deployed it 26 times in fiscal 2012 and 27 times in 2013. The use dropped after that, but was still deployed three times in 2016, Mr. Obama’s final full year in office.” AND…
“Border authorities also use another agent, pepper spray, frequently — including a decade-high record of 151 instances in 2013, also under Mr. Obama.”
The gas and the pepper spray was also used in 2017 and 2018 (Trump years) but was not reported in the news.
The propaganda is Palestinian and they have perfected it over the years. It’s called “Pallywood.”
Here is one example.
Here is a better one.
Nice Liz. Thanks.
Obama’s people used pepper spray. True statement, but a deflection from their use of CS. Typical.
Sheesh. I don’t see those dark colored hyperlinks, but I should have looked for it.
Washington Times in re prior uses: “The data poses a challenge to the current anger over the Border Patrol’s use of tear gas Sunday to prevent a mob from busting through sections of old border fence in California.
Critics, including Latin American leaders, immigrant-rights advocates and congressional Democrats, have said use of tear gas is “un-American.” ”
* * *
Shades of “that’s not who we are” — except the author of that line was the one using the same thing during his administration.
The use of tear gas and other non-lethal weapons to break up riots is, in fact, very American, historically speaking.
The border breachers should be thankful we are not China or Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_control
“Riot control refers to the measures used by police, military, or other security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, demonstration, or protest. If a riot is spontaneous and irrational, actions which cause people to stop and think for a moment (e.g. loud noises or issuing instructions in a calm tone) can be enough to stop it. However, these methods usually fail when there is severe anger with a legitimate cause [unpaid political advertisement], or the riot was planned or organized. Law enforcement officers or military personnel have long used less lethal weapons such as batons and whips to disperse crowds and detain rioters. Since the 1980s, riot control officers have also used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and electric tasers. “
Easy solution to the problem of endangering children.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/dont-want-your-kids-to-get-tear-gassed-leave-them-at-home-when-you-riot
“All of this outrage misses the point. Blame doesn’t belong with Border Patrol. They weren’t confronting a mob of toddlers. They were face-to-face with hundreds of adult migrants who chose to start chucking rocks. Officers responded with appropriate nonlethal force. The fact that children were caught in the crossfire isn’t a crime, unless the crime is child neglect or bad parenting by those who brought them to the scene.
Anyone seeking asylum can apply for it at a port of entry. But these migrants chose not to do that. They rushed a barbed-wire fence in an attempt not only to break U.S. law, but to challenge the legitimacy of the government that enacted it. The mothers who brought their kids with them endangered their own children.
The presence of children wasn’t a coincidence, by the way. As the Washington Post reports, parents and smugglers are in the habit of using kids. For many years, their chances of entering the U.S. illegally and avoiding deportation were better if a toddler came along for the journey. Coyotes don’t have to guide migrants through a dangerous desert. So long as they have a kid with them, they could simply be delivered to U.S. immigration authorities. Smugglers even offered a discount if kids are part of the cargo. This is how the policy of taking in family units has generated an entirely new type of child abuse.”
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/11/27/tear-gas-on-the-border-actually-used-so-often-under-obama-organizers-were-well-aware-it-was-inevitable/
“Besides clarifying that the Obama administration had no qualms about using crowd-control agents at the border, this history illuminates an additional point. The organizers of the migrant caravans have to be well aware that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol employs pepper spray and tear gas, and will do so if groups of people attempt to rush the border for an illegal crossing. When faced with an onrush of young, able-bodied men throwing rocks and bottles and trying to breach a boundary, these crowd-control agents represent a humane use of non-lethal means to deter and contain what no nation tolerates at its border.”
Parents, and/or pretend parents, use diaper clad 6 year olds as cannon fodder. The left does not really care about the children, they care about achieving totalitarian hegemony. They are willing to sacrifice hundreds of millions to achieve their goal. Bottom line, they want you dead. Stop pretending otherwise.
I was intrigued by the reports of tear gassing by Obama’s administration, and wondered why we never heard about them at the time (at least I didn’t).
Apparently there were some contemporaneous news reports, so it’s not a case of “fake news” — although the spin on the NYT foreshadows the angle they are taking today, so at least they are consistent about wanting borders erased, no matter who is president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/us/18border.html
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Feds-Install-Razor-Wire-Atop-Border-Fence.html
Even Snopes couldn’t complete dodge the issue.
However, they managed to use it as an excuse to run the picture of the woman & two kids yet again — to give context, no doubt (**cough**).
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-tear-gas-border-migrants/
What’s True
Customs and Border Protection agents used tear gas 1.3 times per month on average between 2012 and 2016, the final five years of Barack Obama’s tenure as president.
What’s False
Figures are not available for the first few years of Obama’s tenure as president, from 2009 to 2011.
CBP sent us the following breakdown of incidents involving tear gas and pepper spray by their agents since 2012. Since these numbers represent incidents, it should be noted that the number of individuals affected is greater than the number of incidents: …
These figures support the claim made in the Washington Times article, although it should be noted that figures are not available for the first few years of Obama’s tenure, from 2009 to 2011.
During the 2017 fiscal year (for most of which Donald Trump was President) and the 2018 fiscal year, 47 tear spray incidents took place, which works out as just shy of two per month. Although there are only two years’ worth of data to go on, so far the use of tear gas by CBP agents has increased under the Trump administration.
By contrast, the use of pepper spray has declined in the first two years of Trump’s tenure as president, from 87 incidents per year between 2012 and 2016 to 50 incidents per year in 2017 and 2018.
In re the use of the mother-meme photo, I also see it on news articles favoring the Trump administration, which seems to me to be rather perverse.
Same thing occurred in the articles fervently asserting Judge Kavanaugh’s innocence, AFTER detailing all of the salacious details — which should have been relegated to a foot note at the end of the article, if necessary, but preferably summarized dismissively — readers of the news and blogs had already seen the list by then.
Lots of own goals by the conservative press.
David French: the gap between presidential actions is not as wide as the press would have us believe.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/flawed-media-coverage-of-obama-hurts-america-still/