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| Border Patrol agents used tear gas to disperse members of a Central American caravan who charged the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro Port of Entry. A roundup of opinion: |
A Democrat would've done the same |
| By Phil Boas |
| If you are a poor, beleaguered Central American refugee who has trekked some 1,100 miles to reach sanctuary in the United States, it is bad form at the moment of first contact to flout the laws of your would-be host nation and attack its law officers. |
| That is what 500 to 1,000 migrants did Sunday when they tried to rush the U.S.-Mexico border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California |
| It was foolish and self-destructive. |
| Such condemnation is sure to provoke wails from corners of the left who look upon all brown-skinned migrants as infants, with no free agency, no capacity to make choices for right or wrong, simply pawns of nations and leaders indifferent to their suffering. |
| But hundreds of migrants made the conscious choice to rush the U.S. border. And by chance or design used the same brazen tactics of the Palestinian intifada, another group the left routinely infantilizes. |
| They pushed women and children to the front of the crowd and then hurled rocks at the Border Patrol agents to provoke a reaction. |
| Certain politicians and journalists bit on this political theater and described Border Patrol's use of nonlethal tear gas as if it were a World War I-like poison gas attack. |
| What's wrong with nonlethal force? |
| The Maricopa County Democratic Party got in on the action with a meme picturing a woman and her children fleeing tear gas: "Every American should condemn these despicable actions. This is not who we are." |
| But it is, in fact, who we are. And who Democrats are. |
| Had they been running the White House and its agencies, it's highly likely they would have done the same thing — use nonlethal force as prescribed by Border Patrol policies to disperse a large and hostile crowd. |
| Barack Obama almost certainly would have done so. |
| He was tough on Latin American immigrants. Just ask former Arizona state lawmaker Alfredo Gutierrez, who routinely condemned him for deporting 2 million people over eight years — more than any other president. |
| Or consider Obama's 2014 tactic, as reported by left-leaning Vox, to use "wide-scale detention of immigrant families for as long as it took to complete their immigration cases and deport them." |
| Sound familiar? |
| Would an Obama White House have allowed some 15,000 people to simultaneously fast-track toward asylum or 500 to 1,000 of them to rush our border unchallenged? |
| Show me a Democratic president who would do that, and I'll show you a one-term president. |
| Border Patrol was facing "an extremely dangerous situation," said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. He praised his agents for exercising restraint and using tactics that prevented serious injuries. |
| This was not a chemical weapons attack on women and children. It was a rock attack on U.S. Border Patrol agents. Four of them were slightly injured, only because their gear prevented worse. |
| And what did it accomplish? |
| Likely, it will harden American attitudes toward Latin American immigration. |
| Even Honduran immigrants who stood back Sunday understood the implications. |
| As for the American left ... they're still in the dark. |
| Phil Boas is editorial page editor at The Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. You can follow him on Twitter: @boas_phil. |
 | | Border door | | Nate Beeler/The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch/PoliticalCartoons.com | |
What our readers are saying |
| The tear gas was not being used on civilians; it was being used on a mob of migrants. It's bad enough when you commit a crime, but to bring your children along as a shield is pure evil! |
| — Paul Pope |
| Sure, tear gas has been used before. The difference is that President Donald Trump has crafted a story of a near military invasion. But the caravan has been coming for a while now. Yet our president, rather than simply create a more effective way to process applications, used this as a means to incentivize his base. |
| — Terry McKenna |
| It's that double standard showing itself again. It's OK when a Democrat uses tear gas, but racist when a Republican does the same thing. |
| — Dave Schwaegler |
What others are saying |
| James S. Robbins, USA TODAY : "One should ask why any parent would willfully expose a child to potential harm. After all, it was the same scene when the caravan broke the Mexico/Guatemala border, with men throwing rocks and women and children suffering the inevitable tear gas response. The parents might have known this could happen again; rushing the U.S. border was obviously asking for trouble. For all they knew, the border agents might have opened fire." |
| Dana Milbank, The Washington Post : "What could be more threatening to U.S. military personnel than a vast army of pipsqueaks, lacking potty training and running dangerously low on diapers? The use of tear gas instead of live ammo was an act of love. ... President Donald Trump's concern for others' babies also explains his administration's use of tear gas on migrant tots. He seemed genuinely outraged by the 'Animal Assad' after the Syrian leader used poison gas on children. ... Now Trump's agents have fired nonlethal chemical gas at babies — to toughen them for the cruel world that awaits. What doesn't kill them makes them stronger." |
| Chicago Tribune, editorial : "The administration and its allies insist that the U.S. has every right to control its borders and that those foreigners who want to come here should do so through legal channels. That sounds reasonable. At the same time, though, the current system makes it virtually impossible for many people to come — and the wait times for those who do qualify are often measured in decades." |
| To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY or provide feedback to this newsletter, email jrivera@usatoday.com, comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter. |
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