Crying poster child for family separation wasn’t separated from her family
Another iconic photo of a child that doesn’t document the situation it claims to illustrate:
She has become the poster child for family separation at the border — and the subsequent moral outrage against the Trump administration — but the crying Honduran child held up as a heartbreaking example of family separation at the border was, in fact, never separated from the parent with whom she illegally crossed the border into the U.S.
The two-year-old girl, Yanela, and her mother, Sandra, were detained in Texas after attempting to cross the Rio Grande river, and were held together.
“I know now that they are not in danger. They are safer now than when they were making that journey to the border,” Denis Javier Varela Hernandez told The Daily Mail of his daughter Yanela and wife Sandra. Hernandez also said the two were doing “fine.”
Photos of crying children tug at the heartstrings. And I have no doubt in this case that there are indeed plenty of crying children who have been separated from parents at the border. However, it is not the usual policy to separate children under 5, and Yanela is 2. But it makes a good story, doesn’t it? So what of journalistic integrity?
More here of the real story:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to CBS News the mother and daughter are being housed together at a facility in Texas and her immigration proceedings are ongoing.
“We were patrolling the border. It was after 10 o’clock at night,” Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz told CBS News’ David Begnaud. He was the first to encounter Sandra Sanchez and her daughter after they allegedly crossed the Rio Grande River into Texas illegally.
“We asked her to set the kid down in front of her, not away from her, she was right in front of her…So we can properly search the mother,” Ruiz said. “So the kid immediately started crying as she set her down. I personally went up to the mother and asked her ‘Are you doing OK? Is the kid OK?’ and she said, ‘Yes. She’s tired and thirsty. It’s 11 o’clock at night.'”
So it was late, the journey had been long, and the child was tired, hungry, and thirsty. What a journalistic coup!
In a previous post I wrote the following:
Appeals to emotion and the desire to protect children are time-honored propaganda methods. The details may change, but the tactic remains. Think Mohammed al-Durah (see this and this). Then there was the photo of the napalmed South Vietnamese girl (see this and this). The first incident was almost certainly staged and fake, but was highly successful in turning European opinion against Israel. The second was true, but the underlying facts were distorted by the press to increase popular opposition to the Vietnam War.
The stories about the children separated at the border are in the latter category: true, but the underlying facts, as well as the law, are being distorted by the MSM in its fervor to appeal to emotion. Emotion is—well, it’s emotional, and children are a sure-fire way to stir it up.
[NOTE: Another case of news about a child at the border that was distorted to make an anti-Trump story, when in fact the entire incident was one of the government trying to prosecute a smuggler:
“The mother and her five children were in a vehicle driven by a U.S. citizen,” Border Protection said in a statement Wednesday. “Upon questioning, the mother admitted to being illegally in the United States. Three of the children are U.S. citizens and were released to an aunt. The mother was not prosecuted, but is instead being held as a material witness to support the prosecution of the smuggler, which precipitated the separation of the two other children, both Mexican citizens.”
Could it be that much of the turmoil and trauma these children are facing comes at the hands of the illegal immigration journey itself, as well as the exploiters they meet in the process, rather than the US government? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.]
[ADDENDUM: But perhaps the inundation of propaganda isn’t working?]
[ADDENDUM II: More from Ace):
She wasn’t a first time border crosser: she’d already been caught illegally entering the US in 2013. A second offense makes her a felon.
She had left three other children back with her husband.
Her husband confirms she wasn’t fleeing any sort of political persecution, but was just looking for a job.
One can surmise she brought the tot along as her Get Out of Border Jail Free card.
Right on schedule, Time magazine offers the expected excuse for its mendacity:
TIME defended its cover and its reporting Friday, essentially claiming the facts are irrelevant because of the propaganda value of the piece. The photo and story “capture the stakes of this moment,” the editor in chief told reporter Hadas Gold.
Time is a sad simulacrum of what it once was, long long ]ago.]
Oh and half a dozen “friends” on Facebook posted the Time cover. I am just so sick of it all. The continual hysteria and outrage from the media. Can’t stand it.
Delilah:
Maybe you should refer them to a link to the real story. It may not do any good, because crying child, but perhaps one or two might pause to reflect for a moment.
The photographer (Moore) has been on TV. He is proud of himself for getting such an emotional picture. It’s all anti-Trump propaganda. No one would every criticize Obama’s policies.
So what of journalistic integrity?
It doesn’t exist. These journalists are just democrat apparatchiks. They are blatantly partisan shills for the democrats.
Neo, you know a lot about psychology. Isn’t it true that compulsive liars keep telling bigger and bigger lies?
It’s hard to imagine but the media coverage of this story may be an all time low. Between the mistakes, untruths, outright lies and over wrought emotional outbursts it is all too much.
And of course all topped off by the fact that so much of the supposed evidence used actually occurred when the god king was our wonderful leader and you have a confluence of all that is wrong with social media and journalism in 2018.
Concerning the picture, the best quote was from the mother saying her child was ok, just cranky and tired at 11 pm. What 2 yr old wouldn’t be crying that late at night?
“fake but accurate”
That seems to be taught in Journalism 101.
Time has just revealed themselves to be a dishonest, despicable organization.. What they have done is so defiant, brazen and evil that it is breath-taking.
I have 133 Facebook friends. I had 134. This week, I did an entire series on Facebook dedicated to the following:
1) 2014 through 2016 stories from the Washington Post, NPR, and the New York Times with pictures and pictures of migrant kids (separated even).
2) A few posts on the Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services because one of my friends was an avid poster posting propoganda from LIRS. I discussed the fact that LIRS has received $69 million in their latest Form 990 from the federal government, and in their latest A-133 had significant findings regarding their organization’s financial and managment practices (audit).
3) I also posted about this Honduran woman who took her 2 year old child – leaving her other kids and husband – paying $6000 to a coyote, not being separated, etc. etc
While I only got 3 likes, I have a friend who thanked me for sharing and did not know the information.
I also post from my heart when I do this. I preface everything with as a compassionate and loving man, I am for personal responsibility, not for child trafficking and endangering these children and I make sure that I include the words – PROCESS IS LOVE and LOVE IS PROCESS.
You can’t have no process and have this lawlessness inviting people to snatch kids and then try to cross the border.
What if when my daughter was two, I grabbed her and tried to head into Canada or Mexico leaving my wife. IT is a CRIME.
I wanted to throw this into the discussion.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/donald-trump-family-separation-executive-order-obama-policy/
Trump Moves to Obama’s Position on Family Detention, Democrats Outraged
By DAVID FRENCH
June 21, 2018 3:36 PM
“Democrats — and many Republicans — united to end family separation. Now, Democrats unite again to take on policies that many of them supported (or were silent about) two short years ago. That’s one reason why it’s so hard to take contemporary political rhetoric seriously. Is a policy “child abuse” simply because Trump is executing it?
There is no perspective. There is no sense of proportion. There is no historical memory.”
* * *
To answer French’s question: a judge already decided that enhanced vetting of travelers from certain countries was illegal because Trump did it, but would have been okay from Obama or (presumably) President Hillary.
In case you are wondering what the GOP congressional position is on immigration, here’s a visit to the recent past.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/omnibus-bill-immigration-portions-anti-enforcement-win/
Heckuva Job, Paul and Mitch
By MARK KRIKORIAN
March 23, 2018 10:50 AM
“Apart from the absence of a DACA/Dream amnesty, the immigration portions represent a comprehensive victory by the anti-enforcement crowd. Nancy Pelosi even gloated about her victory on the House floor, saying to the president, “if you want to think you’re getting a wall, you just think it and sign the bill.”
Among other things, administration’s requested increase in ICE agents was rejected; since many of those agents were slated for worksite enforcement (which is bureaucratically separate from the deportations side of ICE), the Democrats have ensured that, while illegal aliens will keep getting arrested, the American employers who profit off them will have less to worry about than they would have otherwise.
What’s more, the bill funds less detention space than is currently being used. The request for added space to hold illegal aliens is especially important given the continued high levels of “unaccompanied” minors and family units still streaming across the border. In effect, the (Republican-dominated) House of Representatives has voted to continue a policy of catch-and-release, where illegal aliens, as under Obama, are apprehended and then let go into the U.S.
…
The idea of sanctuary cities is deeply unpopular, and yet measures that would have restricted funds to them, in order to persuade them to turn away from their John C. Calhoun–style nullification of federal law were stricken from the bill. True, the Justice Department lawsuit against California may eventually succeed, but there’s a reason the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.
The spending bill also micromanages physical barriers on the border. It provides funds for 30-something miles of new fencing on the Texas border, but specifies that none of it may resemble the wall prototypes that the Border Patrol has been testing for the past few months. The bill prohibits any kind of border barrier in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, a bird sanctuary on the Rio Grande in South Texas. A fence or wall wouldn’t interfere with the birds, of course, since they could fly over it; the objections to building there have centered on the fact that it would restrict access to bird-watchers. And a bollard wall actually saved another sanctuary, the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, which a decade ago was being overrun by illegal aliens.
Perhaps most galling: The bill provides funding, without the onerous restrictions, to the Secretary of Defense “to enhance the border security of nations adjacent to conflict areas including Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia” — border security for thee, but not for me.”
David French unwittingly (?) explains why Trump won, and is gaining adherents.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/democrats-family-separation-position/
“One of the great cons of contemporary politics is the manner in which elected officials falsely stoke rage and fury for the sake of personal gain and political ambition. The gap between rhetoric and action is so great that contemporary politics is best compared to the WWE. The conflict is play-acted for the cameras, but too many members of the public don’t know that what they’re watching is fake. So they feel real emotion. They feel a real sense of crisis. And Washington rolls on with politics as usual.”
Another weird thing about this story: the father says he works as a Captain at the port of Puerto Cortez. It’s not clear whether this means captain of a boat/ship or the overall Port Captain, but in either case his income should be well above the poverty level.
Please, someone, anyone, point out any political entity, city state, nation state, empire, clan or tribe that has survived open borders.
David Foster:
It is probably way above the poverty level if the wife managed to pay a smuggler 5K.
I’ve always wondered about the people who have enough money to pay smugglers, fund a (sometimes very long) trip, and exist AFTER they get here (although taxpayer funding seems to kick in pretty quickly*).
Why don’t they have enough money to: go to a consulate, apply for asylum, and buy a plane ticket? I’ve never spent $5000 for a flight anywhere anytime.
map of US consulates in Mexico:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2007411182906381&set=p.2007411182906381&type=3
*see this; if we closed the border and shut the detention centers, we could end poverty among American citizens.
https://davidharrisjr.com/politics/illegal-children-on-public-dole-have-higher-living-standards-than-13-2-million-american-children/
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/06/23/mexicos-leading-presidential-candidate-all-worlds-migrants-have-human-right-to-seek-life-in-u-s/
I would suggest that all the world’s honest, productive, and freedom-minded people should have the OPPORTUNITY to legally seek life in the US.
I don’t believe there is any right to have US citizens FUND that opportunity for them.
Neo:
charles:
Somewhere, Dan Rather is smiling and shaking his head.