In the midst in a battle over the border, where it’s unclear just how many children are being separated from their families, Border Patrol has come to complain about the media’s use of the word “cages.”
They reached out to CBS News co-host Gayle King, who relayed the message on air Monday morning.
This just in from @davidbegnaud: Border Patrol has reached out to @cbsthismorning and said they are “very uncomfortable” with the use of the word cages. They say it’s not inaccurate and added that they may be cages but people are not being treated like animals. pic.twitter.com/0zSDqJszgK
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 18, 2018
Perhaps what’s more concerning than the Border Patrol’s discomfort with the word “cages” is that they admit the term is accurate. They don’t deny that children are currently detained at the border in structures made of chain-link that are basically cages.
While Border Patrol made it clear that they believe these children “aren’t being treated like animals,” many of them have been separated from their families.
Through comparisons to internment and concentration camps and questioning of President Donald Trump’s ethics, figures from both sides of the political spectrum have called for an end to the detainment and change to immigration policies as Americans around the country have taken to the streets protesting the policy.
“It’s inhumane,” Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director, said to CNN. “It’s offensive to the average American.”
Former first lady Laura Bush was similarly horrified: “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history,” she said, as CNN reports.
Despite outrage from the media and political figures, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen denies that families are being separated and children are being detained, taking to Twitter to further deny the policy.
We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.
— Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018
Like Nielsen, Trump has given no word to explain how he plans to end to controversy, or if he is to change the immigration policy at all. Instead, he called on Democrats to fix “the world’s worst immigration laws.”
Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws? Where is the outcry for the killings and crime being caused by gangs and thugs, including MS-13, coming into our country illegally?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2018
Regardless of party lines, if it looks and functions like a “cage” — the discomfort should probably be over using it on children more so than what media outlets are calling it.