Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Assistant Secretary Steven Wagner said during a Senate hearing before a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee that the office responsible for unaccompanied immigrant minors “was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475" immigrant children.
From then on, news outlets ran with the report that the federal government had lost nearly 1,500 children.
And to make matters worse, many anti-President Trump personalities used photos of children in cages from 2014 to illustrate these reports, like former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau. Unfortunately for their agenda, the photos they shared were taken when Obama was in office.
In the era of Trump, it’s easy to see how these reports spark a great deal of outrage. Critics have no problem turning a poorly edited letter into a damning piece of news against the president, so why wouldn’t this report on immigrant children be any different?
The problem is that the HHS could not track these children after they had already been released from their care. According to the law, they have no responsibility for minors once they are released from government care.
Why are Obama supporters only now showing outrage regarding anti-immigrant policies? Is it just because Trump is president? Or are they genuinely only now realizing that the U.S. has been tough on border crossers for decades?
Everything Goes When It Comes To Political Virtue-Signaling
President Trump does want to separate children from undocumented parents, however, he is building on the work of his predecessors and yes, taking it one step further.
Regardless of where you stand on immigration, the left’s lack of outrage over immigrant children being mistreated under Obama then, and the right’s lack of outrage over immigrant children being mistreated under Trump’s care now, says a lot more about the bankruptcy of left versus right politics than whatever presidents have done or are doing.
If the welfare of all children is what mattered to pundits and "Average Joes" across the nation, then why the inconsistencies?
Libertarians often understand that when it comes to immigration, the government’s own economic policies, trade treaties, and regulations are significant contributing factors toward an environment that promotes mass migration. So when discussing the roots of the issue, we must focus on the policies that have created the problem in the first place.
To many on the left and right, issues are single-serving. They exist so they can be used against their political enemies.
Asking the federal government, an institution created to rule us with one-fits-all policies, to treat immigrants as individuals is a pointless task. But discussing the policies that have laid the groundwork for the creation of more and more immigration restrictions is not.
Instead of embracing hypocrisy just to take a cheap shot against your political opponent, how about actually trying to find a solution that boosts liberty and, as a result, betters the lives of all parties involved? Both left and right should give it a try.
