Media Separated from Reality at Border

by Tony Perkins: It's one thing to tell a story that tugs on people's heartstrings. It's quite another to manipulate that story to color people's view. Of course, the liberal media knows a thing or two about twisting the truth to suit their narrative. And, after days of posting gut-wrenching photos of children at the border, the facts are finally catching up with them. Turns out, the faces of the immigration debate aren't faces from this crisis at all!

Time magazine is one of the biggest offenders. Its latest cover, a crying toddler staring up at President Trump, was never separated from her mother at all. In what is turning out to be a major embarrassment for Time and the far-Left, the little girl's father went to the press to correct the story, insisting that she and her mom were never separated at the border. To its credit, the Washington Post outed the magazine and pointed out that, "The heart-wrenching image, captured by award-winning Getty Images photographer John Moore, was spread across the front pages of rel="nofollow" target="new">international newspapers. It was used to promote a Facebook fundraiser that has collected more than $18 million to help reunite separated families."

And Time isn't the only outlet taking liberties with the truth. Other outlets have been forced to apologize on air for using a photo of a caged little boy, after describing him as "ripped from the arms of their mother" by the president's immigration policy. The propaganda is so out of control that the New York Times took the rare step of shaming the Left in a column, "How Liberals Got Lost on the Story of Missing Children at the Border." Using a picture of two little boys in a cage as an example, reporter Amanda Taub explains, "This image has been widely shared on social media in recent days, offered as an example of the Trump administration's cruel policies toward immigrants, but in fact the picture was taken in 2014."

The real irony is this -- no one needs to manipulate the truth to horrify Americans about the situation. There are more than enough nightmarish stories to compel anyone to act -- and we should. You'd have to be the Tin Man not to be moved by what's happening to children before they even get to our borders. People at ground zero, like National Border Patrol Council spokesman Chris Cabrera, have seen enough to keep them awake every night of the week. On CNN, he explained the absolutely devastating impact our lawlessness has had on families.

"I don't think everybody understands what's happening down here. You know, a lot of these kids that are coming here, and put through terrible, terrible situations by their parents...When you see a 12-year-old girl with a Plan B pill, or their parents put her on birth control because they know getting violated is part of the journey, that's just a terrible way to live. When you see a four-year-old girl traveling completely alone with just her parents' phone number written across her shirt. I mean, come on now... We had a nine-year-old boy last year have heat stroke in front of us and die with no family around..."Why? Because our refusal to enforce our laws has encouraged parents to gamble with their children's lives. And despite the media's anti-Trump drumbeat, the majority of Americans still hold the parents responsible. When families are arrested and separated after attempting to enter the United States illegally, Rasmussen reports, "54 percent of likely U.S. voters say the parents are more to blame for breaking the law... [O]nly 35 percent believe the federal government is more to blame for enforcing the law. Eleven percent are not sure."

In the wake of President Trump's executive order, which makes clear that compassion and upholding the law are not incompatible, you would think there would be political goodwill that could be used to address the overarching issue. Not so. Congressional Democrats aren't interested in a solution. They're interested in bypassing immigration laws altogether, regardless of the lives it costs and the havoc it wreaks.

But if they think the American people are on board with that approach, they're mistaken. By a 3-to-1 margin, they reject Obama's "catch and release" program, which essentially apprehends people at the border and then releases them into the country with a court date that they may or may not ignore. Even Democratic voters don't agree with the idea, barely giving it 30 percent support.

The compassionate solution is not the status quo. This has, as Donald Trump pointed out, been going on for many decades. "Whether it was President Bush, President Obama, President Clinton -- same policies. They can't get them changed because both sides are always fighting... This is maybe a great chance to have a change." He's right -- if liberal leaders will set aside their political games long enough to pursue it.
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Tony Perkins is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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