‘Separating Rhetoric from Reality’: Fox News’ Shepard Smith Fact-Checks Trump on Obama and Family Separation – By Josh Feldman (Mediaite) / April 9 2019
Fox News’ Shepard Smith this afternoon fact-checked President Donald Trump‘s comments about family separation under the Obama administration, “separating rhetoric from reality when it comes to immigration in America.”
“President Obama separated the children,” Trump said.
Smith fact-checked the president’s remarks and how he got it wrong on what happened during the Obama administration:
“In 2005, President George W. Bush launched Operation Streamline to arrest, imprison, and deport those here illegally. But Fox News research shows officials often gave children a pass. President Obama continued the operation. However, the Obama administration tended to keep families together. There were exceptions, but it was not the policy to separate. After President Trump issued the zero-tolerance order, officials did separate children from their parents. Some families have not yet been reunited. President Trump also spoke about cages. It is true that some of the photos circulating online showed children kept in chain-linked enclosures during the Obama Administration. For instance, this photo is from 2014. In that year, the Obama Administration saw a surge in children and families from Central America. They started jailing families together as family units. And according to the reporting of our corporate cousins at the Wall Street Journal and others, ‘Obama Administration officials considered separating families, but opted not to do so.’ The Trump administration did separate families. The Trump Department of Homeland Security estimates more than 2300 children had been separated from their families by last spring. And the Trump administration did detain children in cages. An unknown number of those children is still not back with their families. President Trump said today he is not reinstating his own child separation policy.”
Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts noted how the president said he’s not considering restarting the zero-tolerance policy.
But Trump also said “the press should accurately report it,” and Roberts added, “The accurate reporting is that the zero-tolerance policy about prosecuting head of household was enacted under the Trump administration.”
