President Donald Trump authorized shooting tear gas late Sunday afternoon from the U.S. border into Mexico against hundreds of migrants, including pregnant women, and children in diapers. News slowly spread as the Thanksgiving holiday weekend wrapped up and millions were traveling back home, but by Monday morning countless Americans expressed outrage.
Photos from Reuters showing families, mothers, fathers, and even young children and infants fleeing by foot fueled the anger and upset.
The Dallas Morning News described the scene:
“Children screamed and coughed. Fumes were carried by the wind toward people who were hundreds of feet away.”
“We ran,” a 23-year old Honduran woman told the Associated Press, “but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more.” The AP notes she was “cradling her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms.”
A reporter with the UK’s ITV News reports US military helicopters entered Mexico’s airspace during the attack:
On CNN Monday morning Chief U.S. Border Patrol Agent Rodney Scott defended the use of tear gas by saying agents had to use it to protect themselves after some migrants began throwing rocks at them. When asked if any of the agents had been hurt he admitted they were not.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” he said on CNN.
The Washington Post reports the outrage appears to be partisan, with Republicans supporting the President’s use of tear gas against defenseless people seeking asylum.
“Unlike the relatively bipartisan criticism of Trump’s now-abandoned ‘family separation’ method of deterring migrants, the initial outrage at the tear gassing of children appeared to come primarily from Democrats and critics of the president.”
Here’s how many responded to Trump’s tear gassing of children.
Image: Screenshot via Washington Post video.