Well, this is awkward. As Twitchy reported earlier, AFP withdrew a story slamming President Trump for allowing there to be 100,000 child migrants in U.S. detention facilities after it was learned that the number was taken from 2015, during the Obama administration.
Reuters also ran (and withdrew) the story, but not before the DNC War Room linked to it, calling it “a disgusting result of Trump’s family separation policies.” We wonder if they still think it’s disgusting and a violation of a U.N. treaty now that they know the number comes from the Obama administration? The one with zero scandals?
The DNC War Room has since deleted that tweet, but the Reuters story to which it links now reads only:
GENEVA (Reuters) – A Nov. 18 story headlined “U.S. has world’s highest rate of children in detention -U.N. study” is withdrawn. The United Nations issued a statement on Nov. 19 saying the number was not current but was for the year 2015. No replacement story will be issued.
Why will no replacement story be issued? You’d think it would be easy enough to correct the year and replace “Trump” with “Obama,” right?
The *Democratic* National Committee War Room accusing the Obama Administration of White Supremacy and violating a UN treaty is the most perfect thing to happen today pic.twitter.com/c5uPFfkcQv
— Logan Dobson (@LoganDobson) November 20, 2019
— Lynsey ?? (@lynseyross999) November 20, 2019
Media outlets are deleting these stories instead of correcting the date because it ruins their anti-Trump narratives when people learn Obama locked up kids. They don't care about the truth, just scoring political points. pic.twitter.com/0YOkeCQxj9
— Watchdog (@LibWatchdog) November 19, 2019
The Associated Press also was forced to issue a correction:
An earlier version of this article was based on a quotation from Manfred Nowak, author of a U.N. report on detained children, who said that more than 100,000 children are being held in migrant detention in the United States. Nowak later corrected the number, saying it was a 2015 figure that referred to the cumulative number of migrant children held in detention at any point during that year.
So, essentially, all of the big media outlets jumped on this story because of a report by Manfred Nowak, lead author of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, that turned out to be bogus. Jeryl Bier was skeptical and broke down the story Monday:
1/ Something weird about this report…
—-
U.S. has world's highest rate of detained kids; should be 'last resort,' says U.N.https://t.co/WPd3AHVWRs via @nbcnews— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
2/ "The United States detains an average of 60 out of every 100,000 children in its justice system or immigration-related custody…"
Using this rate, and based on 74,200,000 children under 18 in the US (https://t.co/SHPJCAWR26), that comes to only 44,520.
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
3/ According to Pew, border agents picked up 54,000 unaccompanied children in 2018 (https://t.co/PQjKLEcRUE). Obviously there are fluctuations throughout the year, but it seems the US rate of detention is solely based on the fact people are sending kids to the US by themselves.
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
4/ Obviously it takes time to process these children (we can't just release them on their own just so we can say we aren't "detaining" them). I am also not discounting that the Trump admin has botched the situation with its separation policy.
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
5/ But it's not like the Obama admin resolved the problem of how to not detain children that are sent to the US on their own. Sure, we could let them fend for themselves like other countries most likely do, but we wouldn't do that.
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
6/ It seems to me this "rate of detention" has been cherry-picked by some in the media (and politicians) to fulfill the "what does the US do wrong" requirement that seems to come with the release of reports like these.https://t.co/qsvQ5vn12W
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
Bingo.
7/ One reason for my skepticism is this list below that shows rate of institutionalization of children throughout the world. This comes from the same UN report. Note that the US is in the *lowest* category. pic.twitter.com/D5XiQaQ0R1
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
8/ I have not even come close to examining this whole report, but I would just caution those looking to fault the US to delve more deeply before just repeated the "the US has the worst rate of child detention" line.
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
But notice how quick the Democrats were to exploit that and use it as a political cudgel … until it turned out to be their hero putting kids in cages.
9/ Certainly we are not perfect (and as I have said, the Trump admin had terrible judgment with the child separation policy), but I am not sure the US is really the apparent monster that reports seem to suggest.
If I am wrong, feel free to comment below.
/End— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 19, 2019
No, you were right, and the U.N.’s outside “expert” was wrong.
Related:
Look why the AFP withdrew a story about the more than 100,000 migrant children in US detention centers https://t.co/OjM6IvAvrU
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 19, 2019
