Establishment Media Issues Four Corrections After Falsely Claiming Trump Separating Families at Border

The establishment media suffered a major blow over the past 48 hours, being forced to issue four corrections after falsely claiming that President Trump enacted a policy to separate border-crossing parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a list compiled by the White House, the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Seattle Times all had to issue corrections to their false immigration reports.

A New York Times report and a USA Today report both had to issue corrections after they claimed that the Trump administration had “lost track” of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minors who had crossed the southern border and been resettled across the country.

As the New York Times correction notes, those unaccompanied minors are not in federal custody anymore.

Correction: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.

The USA Today correction reads:

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.

A Washington Post reporter and the Seattle Times Editorial Board were both forced to issue corrections after they falsely claimed that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had enacted a policy to separate border-crossing families as a deterrence for illegal immigration.

In fact, the Trump administration’s policy is to prosecute all border crossers, including illegal alien parents who cross the border with their children. This policy results in border-crossing parents having their children taken into federal custody.

The Washington Post correction reads:

NOTE: This article has been updated to clarify that the Trump administration’s new policy is to prosecute all undocumented border crossers and that the result is to separate parents from children; the policy’s explicit purpose is not to separate undocumented parents and children.

Likewise, the Seattle Times correction reads:

NOTE: Correction: A previous version of this post said that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had defended the Trump administration policy of detaining undocumented immigrants and separating them from their children as being “for the purpose of deterrence.” Nielsen in fact had testified at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that DHS had not been directed to enact the policy as a means of deterrence. The post has been updated.

As Breitbart News reported, unaccompanied minors arriving at the southern border and being resettled across the U.S. have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Last year, alone, unaccompanied minors cost taxpayers $1.4 billion to house and provide welfare for them.