White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday alleged the “mainstream” media is showing only children and families traveling in the migrant caravan to the U.S.-Mexico border, with the aim of stirring backlash against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“There are violent elements in the caravan,” Conway told “Fox and Friends”. “The mainstream media only wants you to see the children, the families. They’re not telling you that most of the caravan are males traveling by themselves, that of course projectiles and rocks were thrown at our brave men and women at the border.”
On Sunday, Border Patrol agents used tear gas against members of a migrant group who threw rocks and debris at agents while trying to break through a barrier at the U.S.-Mexico border. A widely circulated photo from a Reuters photographer, which showed a mother running away from the tear gas fumes while pulling along her two young children in diapers, sparked immediate outrage.
[Opinion: Don’t want your kids to get tear-gassed? Leave them at home when you riot]
A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, runs away from tear gas in front of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico.
(?: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) pic.twitter.com/pz7hkxsN9g
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 25, 2018
“If people care about these folks, they won’t just go for the optics,” Conway argued. “They would focus on opportunity. Take a picture of these people and use them, or you want them to get the opportunity here? Get them to stand in line, come through one of the 26 ports of entry legally.”
