The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

I will quote again from Thomas Sowell: “If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference and choose their news sources accordingly.”

I am referring to the photo of the little crying girl supposedly separated from her family at the Mexico-US border. As most of us now know, that never happened. The child was right there next to her mother with the border patrol. There is a picture to prove it. It was late at night, she was tired and crying. After the mother was checked by the border patrol, she and the child left together. The media should be shamed for reporting this bias news. I have a friend whose son works as a border patrol at the Texas border. I was told that has been going on for quite some time and some procedures need to be better amended.

It started in 1985 when an unaccompanied 15 year old girl named Jenny Lisette Flores, hoping to reunite with her aunt from violence in El Salvador, attempted to illegally cross the Mexico-US border. She was taken to a detention center among others, mostly adults that were there. At that time, INS policy restricted the release of a child either to her parent or guardian, but not to another adult relative. So Jenny remained imprisoned. After many years of proceedings as to how to handle such issues concerning children, President Clinton and his administration in January 1997 agreed to a consent decree called the Flores Consent. What that means as said by Rich Lowry who is an Editor of National Review “that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20 day limit to children who come as part of family units. The clock ticking on the time the government can hold a child will almost always run out before an asylum claim is settled. The migrant is allowed 10 days to seek an attorney, and there may be continuances or other complications. This creates the choice of either releasing the adults and children together in the country pending the adjudication of the asylum claim, or holding the adults and releasing the children. If the adult is held, HHS (Health and Human Services) places the child with a responsible party in the US, ideally a relative (migrants are likely to have family and friends here).”

If I understand correctly from a reliable news source (I hope it’s a reliable one), the Trump administration is trying to reverse the Flores Consent decree, to better amend the system to keep the family together and hopefully get their cases solved quickly.

I have a hard time liking our president because of his crude demeanor but I am finding myself defending him because he has strengthened our economy somewhat and helped reduce regulations and taxes on businesses that helped bring back jobs. Also, he said that he would donate his salary to charity and as promised he donated his first quarterly salary to the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. The only other presidents that I’m aware of that donated their salary to charity is President Kennedy and President George Washington. I’m irritated seeing all the protest being made against President Trump concerning this immigration issue when he is following procedure that’s been established by former President Bill Clinton. It continued still during the administrations of former Presidents Bush Jr. and Obama. Why didn’t they protest then?

Toni Below

Cathlamet