RUSH: Now, let’s go through this. It can sound very complicated, and I try to make the complex understandable. First a story from Breitbart today. Well, actually yesterday. “Democratic Lawmaker: Obama Admin Kept Child Migrant Crisis ‘Very Quiet’ — Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) claimed in an interview Saturday that the Obama administration tried to cover up the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the United States’ southern border.” Now, let’s remember part of what we’re talking about here. Let me set the table.
You remember — I guess it’d be three or four years ago now — in the early spring, late winter, early spring, massive numbers of minor children, unaccompanied, were arriving at the southern border. Not from Mexico. This is very key to this. They were not coming from Mexico. They were coming from Central America. They were coming from El Salvador. And they were coming from Guatemala. There is a loophole in American immigration law that says if people from Central America come to the United States from a non-contiguous nation, we have to keep them.
That’s why they were coming from Nicaragua and El Salvador and Guatemala, because of that loophole. If they are seeking asylum, once they get to Mexico, they have it. The first nation they get to after fleeing their war-torn torn native land is where they apply for asylum. They have it in Mexico. The fact that they’re waiting and traveling through Mexico to try to get asylum here is one of the many roots of this problem. Now, you have that as a foundational understanding.
“Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) [said] Saturday that the Obama administration tried to cover up the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the United States’ southern border. ‘It was kept very quiet under [Obama]. There were large numbers of people coming in. The Obama administration was trying to keep this quiet…’ According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, nearly 70,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the southern border in fiscal year (FY) 2014 — the period between October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014. …
“Cuellar suggested that some adults who are not legal guardians of the children they carry over the border take advantage of the separation policy. ‘Keep in mind that under the law, you can separate a child if that person, the adult, is not the real parent or the custodian because sometimes we see situations where they’ll bring a child because they know of the policy that we have over here with children,’ Cuellar said.”
In other words, they’re gaming the system. They know exactly what our laws are, and they are trying to circumvent them — and during the Obama administration, they were allowed to. This is the point. It’s been going on — and I have all these people saying, “It doesn’t matter, Rush. You should not use that as a defense of what’s happening now.” I’m not using it as a defense. I’m trying to tell everybody that this isn’t what it’s being made to look like. This is not something where people do care about kids and others don’t. It’s not about that.
This is a political issue, and it has roots in the Democrat Party playbook, as I’ve previously demonstrated. The Democrats have an operating play in their book that says “Republicans hate X,” fill in the blank. “Republicans hate women! Republicans hate blacks! Republicans hate kids! Republicans starve kids!” Democrats, of course, loooove and protect everybody. That’s what’s playing out here. This is a political battle, and the football in this battle is the kids.
Democrats don’t care any more about ’em today than they did during the Obama administration. January 28, 2016, Washington Post. This is over two years ago. “Obama Administration placed Children with Human Traffickers, Report Says.” This story is literally devastating. Here’s the opening ‘graph. “The Obama administration…” This is the Washington Post, folks, and this is during the campaign. This is before Trump’s been elected. Trump has nothing to do with any of this, okay?
“The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found. … Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm.
“The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. ‘It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,’ Portman said…” Where were the howls of concern, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen? The Senate investigated it; found the Obama administration tried to hide it and pretend it wasn’t happening, didn’t want anybody to find out.
The media certainly didn’t care to find out and report it, because they were not gonna expose Obama to anything. Where was the compassion for the children? Where were all the catcalls that Obama and the country were separating immigrant families? Where was all of the concern that we see and hear about today? It wasn’t anywhere. It was kept below the radar. It wasn’t an issue. This is faux concern. F-A-U-X. This is pretend concern about illegal immigrant kids being separated from their parents.
I’m telling you, folks, it is a manufactured crisis, and it is a political battle — one I don’t want the Democrats to win. This is not about kids. It’s not that. They are just the latest fill in the blank objective — and the Republicans better get in the game on this and not leave Trump isolated because Trump knows what’s going on. Trump knows what the effort really is here. Migrant camps create them. Refugee camps create them. Eventually, bring in the families and let them all have amnesty.
He knows what this is about because we see it happening in Europe right now, destroying original cultures of all of these European nations. He is the single administration figure standing athwart all of this, saying, “Stop!” Next week there’s gonna be a new issue. It used to be the travel ban. Every week it’s something new. The week before that it was Russia collusion. The month before that, Russia collusion. Then it became Russian obstruction. Then it became Trump obstruction. Every week…
Every week there was a new something to replace what people get tired of — a manufactured crisis every week carried by the media, sponsored and carried by the media. There’s gonna be one of these every week for years to come. This is all they have. This is all they’ve got to try to stop Donald Trump, is to accuse him of heartlessness. It’s the same thing they accused Republicans of for 50 years: racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia! Fill in the blank; you name it. That’s all they’ve got — that and their precious resistance.
But I’m not through. January 29th, 2016, New York Magazine: “Obama Administration Handed Child migrants Over to Human Traffickers.” Well, it looks to me like New York Magazine picked up this story that was originally published in the Washington Post, and they ran the details I just shared with you. Then we have a New York Times report April 26th, 2018. “Federal Agencies Lost track of Nearly 1500 Migrant Children Placed with Sponsors.” What does this mean?
Remember when those busloads of kids were crossing the border and the regime was packing ’em up and busing them into towns and just forcing them on families in these towns? There was a California town that refused to let the buses in, Rancho Murieta, I think — or not Murieta. Rancho… I don’t know. There are so many Ranchos out there but it made national news ’cause they told the buses: Don’t stop; we don’t want you here. The Obama administration “lost track of 1500 migrant children placed with sponsors.” This was after — pretend parents!
This was Democrats banding together to help carry out this policy of letting illegal immigrants into the country. Pretend foster parents, if you will. The story was that they had lost track of nearly 1500. I don’t believe they lost track of any of them. I think they knew exactly where they were. They set it up. But we’re still not through! Washington Post, March 10, 2015. Joshua Partlow is the writer. “Mexican Kids Held for Months as Punishment for Border-Crossing.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? March 2015? Donald Trump hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet!
“Last spring, as Central American children flooded into Texas in a way he had never seen in his three-decade career, Border Patrol agent Robert Harris decided to experiment. His intelligence analysts estimated that 78% of the guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18 — teenagers often hired or conscripted by drug cartels that knew they would not be prosecuted if caught — and he wanted to attack this loophole. ‘Why don’t we remove these juveniles from the smuggling cycle?’
“Harris, the outgoing commander of the Laredo sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, recalled thinking. Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics.
“Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. [jails] while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.” Why, are you telling me that Obama was jailing some of these kids because they were being used as traffickers by drug cartels to bring in product or to actually be human traffic? March 10th, 2015, Washington Post: Mexican kids held for months away from their parents. You see, it’s nothing new, folks. Nothing new at all.
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RUSH: This is Linda in Glendora, California. I’m glad you waited. I appreciate your patience. How are you?
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m great. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: I wanted to say, I think that President Trump needs to take it right back to the Democrats about building this wall and saying, “If there was a wall there, people wouldn’t be able to bring their kids over the illegally. We wouldn’t have any drugs. We wouldn’t have women getting raped in the desert.” As far as people getting separated from their children, our oldest daughter is moving out of state in two weeks.
We don’t know when we’re gonna see her again because my husband lost his 75 to $90,000 job here in California in 2009 and didn’t get another one until four years later, and that was $10 an hour. So all of our retirement, everything is gone to try to save our house for our other two daughters. So I’m sick and tired of hearing people talking about getting separated from their kids. With this state in California, when they can’t afford to buy a home, our other two daughters are also thinking of leaving. So I think President Trump needs to take it right back to the Democrats.
RUSH: He is.
CALLER: And he needs to get Republicans. These damn Republicans need to get on his side. I am so sick of this and angry at what’s going on, our Republican Party does not support this president. There’s only a few that do. But we need all of them to stick together, and President Trump needs… I don’t know. Maybe he should go on and he should start reading all of those news reports that you just cited from the New Yorker and the Washington Post about the traffickers for the kids that Obama and the Democrats did, ’cause they don’t give a damn about kids. The Democrats don’t give a damn, and I’m just so tired of this. I’m gonna be separated from my daughter and our grandchildren, and we don’t know when (voice breaking) we’re gonna ever see them again!
RUSH: You know, that’s a great, great, great point, folks. Remember when the DREAMers kids were the subject of the week? “These are just kids! Why can’t he be…?” and remember all the callers we got? “Hey, my kids have dreams too. What about theirs? How come the illegal immigrants’ kids are the only ones that matter to the Democrat Party or to Washington?” That is a salient point.
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RUSH: This is Vernon in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Glad you waited, Vernon. How are you doing?
CALLER: I’m doing fine. Thanks, Rush.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Look, with all due respect to the previous caller, I don’t think it is a good point. Apples and oranges. Um, look… Look, I agree with you and with the caller that the left, Washington, even many in the right, they don’t give a damn about the kids and they don’t give a damn about most anybody, to be honest. It’s just inside the Beltway. But even if it isn’t… You’ve convinced me. Even if it is that this was Obama’s policy. This is not the right thing to do. This is cruel.
RUSH: What would you do, then?
CALLER: Uh, I.. I… Look, I don’t know… I don’t know. Um, I don’t have all the answers to that. But, uh, you don’t separate families. You don’t separate kids from their parents. It’s a cruel thing to do.
RUSH: Let me tell you —
CALLER: The — the — the system needs to be overhauled for sure, and pressure needs to be placed on Congress to do the right thing. And I appreciate Trump wanting to do that, but this is not the right thing to do. I mean, like I said, the left does not care about the kids. Look at their stance on the education system. But it’s not the right thing to do.
RUSH: Vernon, thank you for the call, very much — and honestly, I appreciate your forthrightness and your honesty when you say you don’t know what you would do. My next comment is not meant to be critical of Vernon. Vernon is a teachable moment. This attitude that Vernon has is shared by a lot of people. I heard it before the program began. “Rush, you better not be trying to defend this! You’re gonna really blow it, Rush, if you do!”
I’m not defending the separation of kids. You’re gonna have to listen very carefully here, I told people. Vernon is why Stuart Varney and Doug Schoen think that the Democrats are winning this, because even without the slightest bit of awareness or understanding of what is really happening, they have bought the notion that Donald Trump is separating families — and that’s unsupportable no matter what.
Well, let me share with you how I, after so many years of experience and study of the American left — which includes the Democrats and the media. One of the first things… When this all bopped up, not today, but days ago, I said, “What is this? The idea that we’re separating families at the border? That can’t be as simple as this.” So the first question I asked: Who are these people and why are they here? I wanted to find that out.
Who are these people and why are they here, and do they know of the possibilities — the things that could happen — and if so, do they come anyway? Why are they trying to get into the country? Why are they there? And then I wanted to know: Is this really what they’re trying to make me think it is? Is it here comes a family, mom and dad from El Salvador and 2.8 kids, and they show up at the border, and some agent says, “Okay, you kids, over there! Parents, over there! We’re separating you, and you’re never gonna be together again if you want to come into our…”?
Is that what’s happening? I ask is that really what’s happening? ‘Cause I can’t believe that’s what’s happening. Mom and dad and 2.8 kids show up from anywhere and the agent says, “Kids, we’re separating you from mom and dad just ’cause you showed up. You get over there. Mom and dad, you get over there. Say your good-byes ’cause its…” Is that what happened? I said, “It can’t be.” I also know Donald Trump. Donald Trump would never devise such a policy as a standard operating procedure.
It just wouldn’t happen. So I, having a duty and responsibility to know what I’m talking about, decided to delve into it. So I wanted to know not just who they were and why they were there. How long has this been going on, and why now? If it’s again going on a long time, why now is it a issue of the day? At the top of the media’s mountain of concern, why is it there? Well, that I can answer without knowing what the issue is.
The reason it’s at the top of the Democrat media mountain of issues of the day is because that’s the latest issue they think they can damage Trump with. After so many years, I fail to accept the premise that so many people do! You can’t blame ’em. The media says it; you believe it. The premise is: “Donald Trump is a mean ogre, and he hates immigrants — and so when they show up as a family, Donald Trump has a policy that sends the kids over to that camp and the parents over to that camp, and they’re done.”
Sorry, I know that doesn’t happen.
So I dug deep, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to find out what this really is, and so I got some audio sound bites from Kirstjen Nielsen at the Department of Homeland Security. And then in researching this, I came across a very comprehensive column by Rich Lowry at National Review back on May 28th of this year — and interestingly, it’s titled, “The Truth About Separating Kids — Some economic migrants are using children as chits, but the problem is fixable — if Congress acts.”
So here basically… This begins the unpacking of this. “The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.” Well, wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! That changes everything here. “Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child…”
I fully believe the media would ignore that.
I firmly believe the media would lie through their teeth, that every family is a legit family.
If the adult “is put into criminal proceedings,” they also separate.
“It’s the last [item] that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults,” all of them who are breaking the law! “The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry.” This is Trump being serious about enforcing immigration law, folks. And if you cross the border illegally, you have broken the law. Now, here’s a further delineation. Your first illegal entry into the United States is a misdemeanor.
If you try again illegal reentry after having been deported or refused entry, it is a felony. “When a migrant is prosecuted for illegal entry, he or she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. … The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters.” That would be a felony. When there is felonious illegal entry, the migrant “is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. … The child is taken [to] temporary shelters.
“The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior illegal entity or another crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day… After this, they are returned to the custody of ICE. If the adult then wants to go home, in keeping with the expedited order of removal that is issued as a matter of course, it’s relatively simple.
“The adult should be reunited quickly with his or her child, and the family returned home as a unit. In this scenario, there’s only a very brief separation. Where it becomes much more of an issue…” This is where you should begin listening very closely. “Where it becomes much more of an issue is if the adult files an asylum claim. In that scenario, the adults are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children.” Asking for asylum changes everything.
“That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. … So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so” by existing law if the migrant is claiming asylum. “[E]ven if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so. The clock ticking on the time the government can hold a child [twenty days] will almost always run out before an asylum claim is settled…
“This creates the choice of either releasing the adults and children together into the country pending the ajudication [sic] of the asylum claim,” in which case we’re never going to see them again, “or holding the adults and releasing the children. If the adult is held, HHS places the child with a responsible party in the U.S., ideally a relative,” but if not, a sponsor. So, in other words, folks, the parents who decide at the border to ask for asylum in this fashion, rather than going in the front door. Remember, now, these are people attempting to get into the country illegally.
Never forget this.
It’s at the root of all of this, and we have laws against it, and they have not been enforced until recently, and this is what happens when you enforce them. There are consequences to violating the law. So if the parents decide to ask for asylum in this fashion via illegal entry then are getting caught, they’re choosing separation. They’re choosing it! They know, for example, that an asylum claim is gonna take much longer to adjudicate than the U.S. can illegally hold their kids, which is a maximum of 20 days.
Thanks to liberal courts, families can only be detained together for 20 days. So the option is whether to release the children to people who claim to be relatives or sponsors or to release the whole family, which is known as catch-and-release! So this is not a wanton, planned effort to separate families for whatever reason anybody could conjure up. It is the result of strict American law that’s been on the books since 1997, and it all hinges on whether or not the migrant is claiming asylum — and they know whether they’re gonna do that before they got here or not.
And they no doubt know that if you’re gonna claim asylum and they have kids with them, that it’s gonna be much longer than 20 the cause before their asylum claim is handled. The kids can only be held 20 days by Homeland Security, or Health and Human Services, by virtue of U.S. law. So they get released while the parents are still in limbo. So the parents deciding to seek asylum end up choosing the separation, and yet look what’s happening! If you pay attention to the news media, you would think the United States is forcing separation on people. Why are they here?
This would not be an issue if they weren’t here trying to get in illegally. Who are they, why are they here, why are they choosing the southern border? All of these questions nobody’s asking. Instead, everybody’s accepting some vision that helpless, needy, poor kids fleeing war come to the United States wanting a better life, and Donald Trump decides to separate the families. Well, for God’s sakes, folks, common sense ought to tell you that that isn’t happening. And then when you find out that this has been going on basically since the year 2000 — 1997 — and only now is there a big complaint about it, what the hell does this tell us?
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RUSH: Okay, now… Now let’s add one more thing. I mentioned this earlier. The loophole. Aliens not from contiguous countries — meaning other than Mexico, coming El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala. People from there who claim asylum cannot be sent back home! We cannot send them back home. We have to file and process their asylum claim. Separation with the kids happens. The aliens insist on being kept in the U.S., which is a loophole that could be fixed immediately. That should be fixed immediately if somebody wanted to.
But all of this is what leads to these people being separated? The people causing it are the people coming here, folks! Now, that may sound… “I have not heard anybody say that!” Well, who are they, and why are they here? They’re subject to U.S. law, which has been on the books for (snorts) much longer than Donald Trump’s been in the White House. I mean, way much longer. You see how easy it is to get caught up in one of these manufactured political crises?
And the Democrats and the media are expert at it. I don’t care if it’s the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act or if it is Donald Trump and Russia collusion or the Donald Trump travel ban, you are never told the truth about it. It is politicized with one objective, and that is to ruin Donald Trump and his presidency, reputation, image, and all of that. And since all the networks run with it, and CNN’s headline:
“Outrage grows over U.S. separating immigrant families.” What an absolute crock that headline is! If you get thereon in jail for robbing the bank, is it the bank’s fault for catching you and enforcing the law or is it your fault because you tried? And if you get thrown in jail and you’re separated from your family because you get thrown in jail for robbing the bank, well, whose fault is that?