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Clueless Media Blame Trump For Detention Abuses Under Obama

Members of the media are blaming President Trump for a detention center where migrant children were reportedly mistreated since 2007.

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In the wake of an eye-opening report from the Associated Press, which details allegations of abuse at a detention center that has temporarily held illegally trespassing foreign minors since 2007, members of the media are blaming President Trump.

Last month, Trump described members of the notorious MS-13 gang as “animals,” causing Democrats and members of the media to lose their minds and wrongfully assert that the president was de-humanizing immigrants and people of Hispanic descent. Now, members of the media, university professors, and bureaucrats are saying this comment proves Trump is responsible for creating the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center — which has housed foreign minors under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — where the minors were reportedly mistreated while waiting for their hearing date to determine whether they would be deported or granted asylum.

Yet the Associate Press reporting and underlying lawsuit that forms the basis for these allegations also says the alleged mistreatment of children happened under Barack Obama’s presidency, starting in 2015.

This professor is likening the facility to a detention center in Iraq where suspected terrorists were mistreated.

This Daily Beast editor deleted the tweet below.

He followed it up with another tweet correcting some of the language in the screen grab above.

The founder of Blue Wave Crowdsource, Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, also shared the AP story with a comparison to Abu Ghraib.

This Blue Checkmark writer was quick to respond to Ivanka Trump with the story of abuse, even though the AP story cites claims from 2015 and 2016 under the Obama administration.

The AP reports that many of the foreign minors were sent to this facility after federal immigration authorities suspected they were involved in gang activity. The AP says the facility was built “to provide ‘secure placement’ for children who had problems at less-restrictive housing.”

The Shenandoah detention center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes. Since 2007, about half the 58 beds are occupied by both male and female immigrants between the ages of 12 and 17 facing deportation proceedings or awaiting rulings on asylum claims. Though incarcerated in a facility similar to a prison, the children detained on administrative immigration charges have not yet been convicted of any crime.

More from the AP on the allegations of abuse, which are reportedly detailed in federal court filings.

‘Whenever they used to restrain me and put me in the chair, they would handcuff me,’ said a Honduran immigrant who was sent to the facility when he was 15 years old. ‘Strapped me down all the way, from your feet all the way to your chest, you couldn’t really move. … They have total control over you. They also put a bag over your head. It has little holes; you can see through it. But you feel suffocated with the bag on.’

In addition to the children’s first-hand, translated accounts in court filings, a former child-development specialist who worked inside the facility independently told The Associated Press this week that she saw kids there with bruises and broken bones they blamed on guards. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly discuss the children’s cases. In court filings, lawyers for the detention facility have denied all allegations of physical abuse.