Trump lies — a lot. He’s very fond of it. As president of the United States, Donald Trump has already been documented to have lied thousands upon thousands of times, and he hasn’t even been in office for two years yet.
He lied again on Twitter this Friday, taking to the social media platform to respond to criticism of his administration for their commitment to the practice of separating undocumented immigrant families once they cross the border into the United States and are taken into custody.
There is no law mandating this practice; it’s just a part of the Trump administration’s broad crackdown on immigration. Even though there is no law forcing the family separations, and it’s the Trump administration carrying the separations out, Trump is continuing to try and blame Democrats.
On Twitter Friday, he wrote:
‘The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda. Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration. Go for it! WIN!’
What he reveals here is that the Trump administration is carrying out family separations as a punitive way to spite Democrats for refusing to support items like his proposed U.S./Mexico border wall. Notice, after all, how he says not that the Democrats are “forcing” the family breakups through any actual laws they’ve passed; rather, he says, they’re forcing it through their legislative agenda, which he goes on to accurately indicate includes opposition to some of his key immigration policy reform proposals.
According to the line of reasoning Trump shares in the above tweet, it’s as if his administration has taken a hostage and is holding a gun to their head, pledging to shoot unless Democrats go along with their wishes. That’s the level we’ve sunk to thanks to Donald Trump.
The line that Democrats are somehow responsible for the family separations Trump’s administration has been carrying out at the border has been touted already, although, again, there is no tangible way to connect Democrats to the policy that the Trump administration has chosen to enforce.
The lies about the origins of the Trump administration’s decision to separate families at the border across the board come after significant backlash. Journalists and concerned political figures have shared stories of the people who have been thrown into the newly tighter undocumented immigrant processing system maintained by the Trump administration, with comparisons to jail among those shared.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) was among those with a blunt response to the emergence of horrifying stories. In response to a story of an infant being torn from a breastfeeding mother’s arms, she wrote on Twitter:
‘Let’s call this policy what it is: a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government.’
Just this week, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed the Trump administration is only following the law in carrying out the family separations, but again, there is no law mandating the practice. All that they are doing is carrying out — yet again — their harshly anti-immigrant vision for the United States.
Check out Twitter’s response below.
Featured Image via The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
