Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is claiming the women and children who were gassed in Mexico by U.S. Border Patrol agents over the Thanksgiving weekend were actually being used as “human shields” by caravan organizers, The Daily Beast reports.
In a dramatic Facebook post the embattled DHS Secretary, who has been under fire by the president, offered an unsubstantiated description of events on the ground inside Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection fired tear gas and pepper spray at the asylum-seeking migrants from across the border.
What the Secretary does not mention, however, is – if the women and children were big used as human shields – why were they not treated as victims, instead of as attackers?
Sec. Nielsen wrote, “the caravan members are predominately male,” which has not been proven.
“It appears,” Nielsen continued, “in some cases that the limited number of women and children in the caravan are being used by the organizers as ‘human shields’ when they confront law enforcement.”
The Daily Beast on Tuesday labeled Nielsen’s claim that organizers are “putting vulnerable people in harm’s way,” an “unverified allegation.”
Her words were echoed by President Trump hours later, as The Washington Post noted.
“They feel they have an advantage when they’re with a young child, and they call them grabbers,” the president told reporters. “That’s a term I’ve heard, but that’s what they call them, grabbers. They grab a child because when they have a child they feel a lot safer.”
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Image by US CBP via Flickr