Mike Pence Humiliated After Major TV Interview Turns PR Nightmare

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Throughout recent days, concern has rocked the United States over the treatment of asylum seekers in custody near the southern border. Stories have emerged of dangerously overcrowded facilities, children forced to sleep in filth on concrete floors, and more. This weekend on CNN’s State of the Union, Vice President Mike Pence refused to take any responsibility for this issue, blaming the situation on everyone from human traffickers in Central America to Democrats in Congress who have hesitated to accept the White House’s immigration policy agenda. He ignored the fact that there’s a wide open, glaring opportunity for border patrol agents to simply treat detainees with more humanity.

Host Jake Tapper asked Pence whether basic health supplies like soap and toothbrushes were a part of the way in which the U.S. cares for children in light of recent testimony from a government lawyer against the idea of being forced to provide those things. Ignoring the reality of the situation on the ground where these provisions are absent, Pence retorted:

‘Of course they are Jake. I can’t speak to what that lawyer was saying. It’s one of the reasons we asked for more bed space when we were negotiating during the government shutdown… It’s one of the reasons we continue to call on Congress to give DHS, Customs and Border Protection additional resources at the border.’

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Florida-based attorney Toby Gialluca recently visited a border facility where they ended up having to pressure the government to hospitalize four ill toddlers, including one who was unresponsive. Although not in direct reply to Pence, they offered a fitting retort, sharing:

‘Money isn’t keeping guards from allowing people to access toilets. Money isn’t causing guards to take clothing and medicine away from children.’

Still, Pence went on. Tapper asked him if he approved of the way that children were being treated in U.S. custody, and he basically indicated that his main issue definitely did not include that, jumping right into:

‘No American should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border. It is overwhelming our border.’

The issue is not the only one to have defined the American immigration system lately. The Trump administration had planned mass deportation raids in coming days targeting people they claimed had already been marked for deportation but had avoided authorities. These have been postponed to give time for an immigration policy deal Trump apparently hopes for.

After Tapper asked what the president would want to see in a deal before the deportations are stopped for good, Pence shared:

‘What we want is to end the days where people believe they can come into the country, make a claim of asylum from oppression or deprivation or violence in Central America or elsewhere and then be released into the country on their own recognizance only to vanish into the nation… People with a hearing that’s scheduled six months, a year, eighteen months later, the overwhelming majority plus 90 percent don’t show up.’

The overwhelming majority plus 90 percent? How does that work exactly? Tapper pointed out that most migrants actually do show up to their hearings, but that didn’t stop the neverending train of Trump immigration lies.

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Featured Image via screenshot