President Donald Trump continues to push for the nation's schools to reopen despite consistent record high numbers of new virus cases around the nation.
His latest White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, appeared on Fox News this past weekend to assure that full reopening of schools was the way to go. This was days after she falsely claimed in a White House press briefing that the science universally supported full reopening.
While defending the effort, McEnany made a comically tactless assertion.
Watch below.
Kayleigh says Democrats “want to lock our children away" which is a very poor choice in wording pic.twitter.com/PlHnKtRjb7
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) July 19, 2020
McEnany said:
"This President has broken down barriers and paved the way to move the way forward to get through this pandemic and to restart the economy. It's a stark contrast to Democrats that wanna lock our children away, keep them out of schools. They're ignoring the science, which says it's perfectly okay to do."
McEnany's claim that Democrats wanted to "lock our children away" fell flat due to the Trump administration's own actions in the past.
During the tenure of former President Barack Obama, undocumented immigrants caught crossing the border for the first time were charged with civil offenses instead of criminal ones. This prevented detention centers from becoming overcrowded, allowed immigration specialists to hear immigration cases, and kept family units together.
Under the Trump administration, all border crossings are treated as criminal offenses. This resulted in overcrowded border detention centers and—most infamously—family separation. Because guardians are charged as criminals, they're separated from their children. Some of them are never reunited.
Once separated, these children are taken to facilities and locked in chain link pens—or, for lack of a better word, cages.
People remembered this when McEnany made her claim.
Countless Americans don't want schools to open prematurely.
For schools across the nation, the new term is set to begin in August. It's unclear how each state will proceed.
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