Everyone agrees that the story of the children separated from their parents and locked up in cages is terrible. Courts agreed too and gave the US Government a deadline to reunite 2,500 families by 21st July. This is a huge task and as a result of previous mismanagement of the situation, the Government is now resorting to DNA tests to match families.
While this is an incredibly frustrating story, what I found equally frustrating about it is how the media is reporting it. Or rather, misreporting it.
I am not a fan of Donald Trump’s politics and it’s quite clear that a lot of the well-respected media aren’t either. But from well-respected media I expect that they look over their political affiliations to represent an accurate view of the facts.
If I had believed the media I’m consuming, I would have gotten the impression that this whole disaster is yet another policy mishap of Donald Trump. I would have believed that Obama had immigration all under control and that Trump’s unnecessary hard line towards immigrants caused this crisis. I would have believed that the pictures of children in cages were taken recently, when actually the detention of minors has been US policy for a long time (admittedly only of unaccompanied ones). I would have believed that Trump cold-heartedly ordered children to be separated from their families, when actually he was legally obliged to do so. I find it deeply unnerving that without long conversations and further research, I would not have understood the complexity of this story, the evolution of policies and simply believed that this was another terrible policy courtesy of Trump. This makes me wonder what other stories may have been misrepresented – or at least not told fully - by media and led me to believe a semi-version of the truth.
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