Tipsheet

Did the Trump Admin 'Tear Babies Out of Their Mothers' Arms' at the Border?

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  September 09, 2022 2:15 PM

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly claimed that the Trump administration was "tearing babies out of their mothers' arms" in 2018 when she visited government facilities at America's southern border during Trump's presidency.

As the humanitarian crisis overwhelms Border Patrol agents and American border towns, members of the Biden White House continue to deflect responsibility and point fingers back at the Trump presidency to re-invoke the infamous "kids in cages" agitprop. How accurate is this regurgitated imagery depicting a seemingly cruel, "zero-tolerance" Trump-era "family separation" border policy? Were infants truly snatched from their mothers?

CLAIM: At the White House press conference Tuesday afternoon, Jean-Pierre was questioned if she will answer Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)'s public invite to travel south to witness first-hand the flood of migrants walking and swimming across the Mexico-U.S. border. "He's suggested that you come down and see for yourself whether migrants are actually crossing the border by foot. Is that something that you would take him up on?" a reporter asked.

To which Jean-Pierre answered: "So, I've been to the border. I went in 2018. I stood outside facilities where the Trump administration was separating families, tearing babies out of their mothers' arms. Some of those kids still haven't been reunited with their families." Jean-Pierre further asserted to the press gathered in the briefing room: "I certainly don't need lectures or invitations from Republicans about the border or border policies."

It's similar language Jean-Pierre used in a lengthy June 2018 thread from her personal Twitter account claiming that what President Donald Trump "is doing to families is cruel, abhorrent, & inhumane." Underscoring that she's the daughter of Haitian immigrants, Jean-Pierre expressed that she was fearful that morning when she was dropping off her toddler at preschool and that she felt "uneasy" while unbuckling her daughter's car seat.

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"Logically, I knew no one was going to tear her from my arms because I am now a U.S. Citizen, that I would see her in a few hours. Yet, the fear remained," Jean-Pierre tweeted. "The fear. Imagine mothers & fathers crossing borders, sacrificing everything, for a safer life for their children. Their babies ripped from their grasp, not being able to console, hold, calm, & nurture them, not knowing if they will ever see them again. This is the reality."

FACTS: Under the Trump administration, adults were separated from kids to make sure minors were not being human trafficked and abused by strangers pretending to be the children's parents. Children became the currency to enter the U.S. and the Trump administration was well aware. Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned during May 2018 remarks on the immigration enforcement actions of the Trump administration: "If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law."

Any adult migrant with a kid in tow was handed an admission ticket, a de facto FastPass of sorts, into America, pre-Trump policy, thanks to the significant difference between the 20-day limit on holding children and the much longer time it took to process an asylum claim. (The federal government was compelled to release detained minors within 20 days in compliance with the standards of the 1997 Flores settlement agreement.)

Claiming asylum is an often-used defense to the charge of illegal border crossing, which adults not entering the U.S. through an official port of entry are subject to, and it has been a frivolous claim for migrants who want to take advantage of the expedited (which would otherwise be months-long) entrance process and to fend off swift deportation. Prior to Trump's tenure, the parent-child family unit presumed to have legitimate familial ties would be allowed into the U.S. during the 20-day period with the adult wearing an ankle monitor while the asylum claim was adjudicated. (Many of the homing devices were cut.) Separation happened if officials found that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child's parent, is a threat to the child, or is facing criminal proceedings. 

Jean Pierre's talking point is reminiscent of the viral photo that TIME Magazine used on its July 2018 front cover of Trump looming over a crying little Honduran girl, who became the poster child for "family separation" fear-mongering. It was debunked, of course, after the two-year-old's father revealed that the toddler was never separated from her mother and the two were both held together at a family detention center in McAllen, Texas.

The intended tough-on-illegal-immigration effect was to send a signal down south that America is serious about law and order at its border by establishing a strong deterrent against illegal entry and re-entry.

In April 2018, even The New York Times reported that migrants used children to increase the chance of admittance: "Some migrants have admitted they brought their children [...] because they believed it would cause the authorities to release them from custody sooner. Others have admitted to posing falsely with children who are not their own, and Border Patrol officials say that such instances of fraud are increasing." The Arizona Republic reported it was "common to have parents entrust their children to a smuggler as a favor or for profit."

Migrants afforded the benefit of the doubt had led to adults using unrelated children to hijack immigration rules and more kids forced to make the dangerous journey from Central America, where predators normalized the sexual assault of children and women en route to America. According to a 2014 investigation, 80% of Central American women and girls crossing into the U.S. via Mexico were raped along the way, directors of migrant shelters told Fusion. Sexual violence became the price to pay for pursuing a better life in America.

Also in 2014, multiple migrant children were passed off to a human trafficking ring in an incident that spawned a congressional report and a federal criminal indictment. Snopes even verified that immigrant children were placed with human traffickers during the Obama administration. Over a period of four months, Department of Health and Human Services put a number of unaccompanied alien children in the hands of a ring of human traffickers who forced the kids to work under inhumane conditions on egg farms around Marion, Ohio, for twelve hours per day, cleaning chicken coops, loading and unloading crates of chickens, debeaking chickens, and vaccinating chickens. Eight minors were identified in the indictment as victims of the forced labor scheme.

The case spurred a Senate subcommittee investigation that concluded that the vetting process used by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to screen sponsors was "inadequate to protect the children in the agency's care." In August 2014, HHS permitted a sponsor to block a child-welfare case worker from visiting one of the victims, even after the case worker discovered the child was not living at the address on file with HHS, the Senate probe discovered. Then from June through September 2014, HHS placed multiple children with alleged distant relatives or family friends—including a defendant in the criminal case—without taking sufficient steps to ensure that the placements would be safe, the Senate staff report revealed. HHS also failed to run background checks on the adults in the sponsor households as well as secondary caregivers.

Meanwhile, thousands of unaccompanied alien children were left unaccounted for after being released by the Biden administration to poorly vetted sponsors. According to data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Axios, the federal government lost contact with approximately 5,000 out of almost 15,000 children who were released into the interior of the U.S. between January and May 2021, which amounts to one-in-three unreached calls. In addition, the Biden administration did not attempt to make contact with over half of the total number of kids that had been released to sponsors through those first five months of last year. HHS had released 32,000 children and teens, but the department only attempted fewer than 15,000 check-up calls.

No matter who's in the White House, scenes at the border have demonstrated that it's a perilous place for children. Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz announced Tuesday that in just a matter of days, agents have caught 10 illegal immigrant sex offenders plus four gang members and even a murderer among the 2,690 migrants they'd encountered. The three-day recap also hauled in 100 fentanyl pills and 71 pounds of methamphetamine.

Over the Labor Day weekend, Border Patrol agents from the Rio Grande Valley sector (RGV) arrested seven gang members—some part of Mara-Salvatrucha (MS-13)—two sex offenders, and a migrant previously convicted of assaulting a child, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in a press release Wednesday. One of the illegal immigrant criminals nabbed was a Mexican national who was convicted of causing harm to a child resulting in serious bodily injury and sentenced to two years in prison. Another illegal alien has a 2004 conviction of statutory rape while a third, a Salvadoran national, was sentenced to 24 to 60 months of confinement for attempted lewdness with a child under 14 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Last month, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s officers with the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) apprehended a Mexican national who's a repeat immigration violator and convicted felon for indecency with a child. The career offender residing in Laredo, Texas, was deported five times to Mexico.

A Mexican man, who was smuggled as part of a group of illegal aliens caught near Carrizo Springs, Texas, pled guilty on Aug. 4 to transporting and possessing child pornography. There were 116 child exploitative images on the defendant's phone, including the abuse of a child as young as three, according to the Justice Department.

RATING: Jean-Pierre's claim that the Trump administration was "tearing babies out of their mothers' arms" is FALSE and a hyperbolic portrayal. The separation policy helped to prevent child sex predators, gang members, and operatives of Mexican drug cartels embedded among the influx of adult migrants from exploiting or causing harm to vulnerable children they'd otherwise be paired with despite no parental relationship. Since the policy's reversal, human traffickers posing as parents have reignited an underground market of child smuggling.