Mainstream media calls Biden's border detention facilities 'migrant facilities for children'—not 'kids in cages'

The Biden administration is locking kids up a the border. But instead of calling this a human rights violation and condemning the president for detaining immigrant children, the Washington Post called it a "migrant facility for children." This after decrying Trump's "kids in cages" for the past four years, despite admitting that Obama built the facilities.

In an opinion piece on Tuesday morning, the Washington Post tried to walk-back their new lingo. They wrote: "And here’s the biggest point: Trump's policy on children at the border wasn't controversial merely because it resulted in children being held at the border, which is a long-standing reality and is what will happen at this facility.

"It was controversial because it forced children to be separated from their parents given its hard-line policy requiring that the parents be held and not released into the country (and given that children couldn’t be held with their parents). This, in effect, made for more children (often very young) that needed to be held alone — about 3,000 in total — beyond the unaccompanied minors (who are often older) who arrive."

However, the family separation policy was out of use by 2018. According to John Daniel Davidson at The Federalist in 2019, "Family separation—an admittedly vile policy—ended a year ago," in 2018. "The CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration, with the exception that today they are overcrowded and undermanned,  so there are problems with sanitation and conditions at some of the facilities."

During the Trump years an image circulated online that was purported to be "kids in cages" at the US' southern border with Mexico. The photo had a peculiar derivation, and was actually an image of Palestinian children waiting at a soup kitchen. But it was used to say that Trump didn't care about kids, that he was opposed to immigrants, and was in general part of the massively anti-Trump narrative pushed by mainstream media for the entire four years of Trump's presidency.

The New York Times ran a story that called it a "mass atrocity" and demanded that border control agents be doxxed and called out in their communities. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exhibited her horror, as well. But the problem was that this was a story being told, and it wasn't true.

Davidson, whose work on just what's happening at the border has been extensive, went on to say that "the Central Americans apprehended by Border Patrol are not being held against their will, nor are children being kept in cages. Indeed, the entire statutory regime under which the Trump administration is dealing with the border crisis is no different than it was under Obama, because Congress has not changed any laws regulating the agencies in charge—despite the manifest reasons why it should."

At the beginning of February, 2021, The Federalist reported that the Biden administration "signaled its intent to reopen a Texas detention center to accommodate a recent increase in unaccompanied minors at the southern U.S. border..." In short, this meant that the Office of Refugee Resettlement anticipated the need to house 700-5,000 children who had crossed the border and were in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security.

A statement from HHS read that "HHS is mindful of these children's vulnerability, and our priority is the safety and wellbeing of each child in our care. HHS anticipates the need to start placing children at Carrizo Springs in 15 days or soon after."

Biden said that "We're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families."

In a statement, the Office of Refugee Resettlement said "The situation remains extremely fluid and can change rapidly." This was after Biden's executive order that created a task force to reunite families that had been separated at the border.