Human Rights

Lindsey Graham Says He’s Scared of ‘Terrorist’ Children Crossing the Border

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is rehashing an old and completely baseless claim that migrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border may become terrorists when they grow up, and he’s using this evidence-free claim to criticize President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

It’s a claim that was commonly used by the GOP and former President Donald Trump during his time in office, and Graham supported Trump’s draconian immigration policies and his border crackdown by referencing the upcoming 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, BusinessInsider reports.

“It’s going to be an economic crisis for our cities along the border and is eventually is going to be a national security crisis, because they’re children today but they could easily be terrorists tomorrow,” he told Hannity Tuesday night. “Al Qaeda and ISIS would love nothing more than to hit us again … to show us that they are still alive and well … this border insecurity is a great way for terrorists to come into our country.”

The GOP has flogged this dead horse for years. Graham and his ilk love to spread the fear-mongering, but as someone who has lived in Central America for several years, I can tell you this is Grade AAA GOP mierda. 

See, here’s the thing: As was demonstrated on January 6, the U.S. has plenty of its’ own domestic terrorists and is doing a banner job of exporting terrorism overseas. In 1946, the Defense Department founded the School of The Americas, and since that time, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers and police officers.

Notes The Guardian’s George Monbiot:

“Among its graduates are many of the continent’s most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and state terrorists. As hundreds of pages of documentation compiled by the pressure group SOA show, Latin America has been ripped apart by its alumni.”

This “school,” now called The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia has unleashed atrocities in El Salvador, Chile, Honduras, Peru, and scores of countries around the world, especially Afghanistan. It has, in effect, torn Central America asunder and implemented mass murder, destruction, and poverty. And it’s one of the biggest reasons why people are fleeing their countries.

So Lindsey Graham is creating fear about people who are just trying to stay alive, people who view the U.S. as a possible safe harbor. Trump claimed, without any evidence that “unknown Middle Easterners,” whom he implied were terrorists, were infiltrating migrant caravans near the U.S. border.

As can be expected now that the Biden administration has loosened immigration restrictions on refugees and asylum-seekers, folks are pouring over the border, and temporary detention facilities and the Department of Health and Human Services shelters which are supposed to house children are jam-packed.

And Graham is chiding the Biden administration for reversing Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy. That policy prohibited Mexican and non-Mexican asylum-seekers from staying in the U.S. as their paperwork was being processed, forcing thousands of people to stay in dangerous refugee camps.

The administration is also expanding family-based immigration, giving millions of undocumented foreign workers the chance to become legal residents and citizens, Business Insider notes and is also scaling back mass deportations.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the administration’s decision to allow more unaccompanied minors across the border is a “more humane” response to the situation than was the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, which included separating children from their parents.

“That is a policy decision which we made because we felt it was the most humane approach to addressing what are very difficult circumstances in the region,” Psaki said, “and that means there are more children, kids under the age of 18, of course, coming across the border.”

Well here’s an idea: How about not creating these situations in other countries, to begin with? Republican administrations aren’t the only guilty party here. In 2016, under the auspices of the Obama administration, the U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs, mostly in Syria and Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, notes The Guardian.

And no, I will never NOT be pissed off about this. Graham is uselessly fear-mongering about something he knows nothing about and this hurts innocent people who have already been hurt too much, to begin with.

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meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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