Latest Immigration Row is Phony Outrage Theater

First, let's hear from Stacy McCain: Democrats and Media Are Lying: Behind the Phony ‘Family Separation’ Propaganda

The media headlines are deliberately misleading:

Nielsen becomes face of Trump’s border separations— Politico
All four living former first ladies condemn Trump border policy— NBC News
Less Than One-Third Of The Public Supports Family Separations— Huffington Post

The myth being promoted by Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) is that the so-called “Trump border policy” is something new. This is a media-manufactured fiction — a hoax — ginned up for partisan political purposes. If the public opposes the current policy, this may be because the media have intentionally published disinformation about the policy. Here is a New York Times article from July 2014:

Immigrant Surge Rooted in Law to Curb Child Trafficking It was one of the final pieces of legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush, a measure that passed without controversy, along with a pension bill and another one calling for national parks to be commemorated on quarters.
“This is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign,” a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, told reporters on Dec. 23, 2008, as the president put his pen to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, named for a 19th-century British abolitionist. “This program has been very effective around the world in trying to stop trafficking in persons.”
Now the legislation, enacted quietly during the transition to the Obama administration, is at the root of the potentially calamitous flow of unaccompanied minors to the nation’s southern border.
Originally pushed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers as well as by evangelical groups to combat sex trafficking, the bill gave substantial new protections to children entering the country alone who were not from Mexico or Canada by prohibiting them from being quickly sent back to their country of origin.
Instead, it required that they be given an opportunity to appear at an immigration hearing and consult with an advocate, and it recommended that they have access to counsel. It also required that they be turned over to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the agency was directed to place the minor “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child” and to explore reuniting those children with family members.
The Obama administration says the law is partly responsible for tying its hands in dealing with the current influx of children. Officials have suggested that the White House might seek flexibility in the law’s requirements when it asks Congress to provide emergency funds to contend with the latest immigration crisis, a request that could come as early as Tuesday. About 52,000 minors without their parents have been caught at the Southwest border since October [2013].

The problem is caused by this 10-year-old law, which passed Congress with the kind of good intentions that pave the road to Hell. The flaws in this law have been recognized — indeed, the liberal media and the Obama administration complained about it — for more than four years

Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border
 Protection processing facility in Brownsville, Texas
November 16, 2014

If a American citizen subjected his or her children to the kind of life that comes with illegally crossing the border, the family authorities in nearly every jurisdiction in the country would, with the support of the citizenry, remove those children from their parents custody.

The current surge in the media outrage is merely a convenient vehicle with which to bash Trump. That was conclusively proven when it came out that the original photos used to gin up outrage were taken during the Obama administration, and the press didn't even show the slightest bit of shame.

Certainly, Trump has amped up the numbers by insisting on treating all border jumpers with or without children as criminals, but the the laws and court decisions that mandate these results have been in place a long time.

Even Ann Althouse isn't buying: "Trump defiant as crisis grows over family separation at the border."

That's the headline at The Washington Post, with this video of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen vigorously defending Trump's policy:

From the article:

The president on Monday voiced defiance and continued to falsely blame congressional Democrats for what he decried as a “horrible and tough” situation. But Trump is empowered to immediately order border agents to stop separating families as a result of his “zero tolerance” enforcement policy.

The insertion of the word "falsely" is such a distracting signal that WaPo doesn't want to be looked upon as neutrally professional journalism. If what Trump is saying is wrong for some reason, that should be brought out, with factual statements, somewhere else in the story. I also don't like "voiced defiant" (or, from the headline, "Trump defiant"). For one thing, it purports to know his state of mind. For another, it refers to something that he's defying before setting up what that is. We're dropped into the middle of things, and Trump is all emotional and spouting lies. I feel like I'm reading a pulp fiction novel.
 . . .
So he's doing more of the kind of talk that won him the election in 2016. What makes Democrats in politics and the media believe it will work out differently this time? Big bets are being made on which high-emotion scenario will capture the hearts of voting Americans. I wish this were not forefronted as the issue for 2018. Whatever happened to the IG's report or North Korea or — for that matter — Russia collusion and impeachment?

I have a modest proposal. Take the kids away from their parents permanently, indoctrinate them to love the United States, and make super soldiers out of them. Think Janissaries. Give them citizenship once they kill someone from the cartels or a murderer from MS-13