Pavlich: Debunking the narrative at the border

As the caravan crisis on the border rages, once again Democrats, some Republicans and leftist activists parading as objective journalists have allowed emotion to completely eclipse law and order.

For weeks, President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Senate Judiciary Committee have been warning about the dangers of caravans traveling from Central America to the United States.

{mosads}“The Department of Homeland Security can confirm that there are individuals within the caravan who are gang members or have significant criminal histories. Citizens of countries outside Central America, including countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere are currently traveling through Mexico toward the U.S.,” DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton said in October.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose staff regularly works on immigration issues, followed up with more information and inquiry.

“According to information obtained by my office, several members of the first caravan have significant criminal histories, including assault and sexual misconduct against a child, and membership in the MS-13 gang. Further, the Department of Homeland Security recently reported that several hundred members of the second caravan clashed with Mexican federal police throwing rocks, glass bottles, and even fireworks at Mexican officers in a seemingly criminal altercation,” Grassley wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Earlier this year, Trump ordered the National Guard to bolster Border Patrol ahead of the caravan’s arrival. At the end of October, he sent the U.S. military to do the same.

These actions were roundly criticized as political stunts, and the president was accused of fearmongering. The caravan was dismissed by former President Obama as “a bunch of, like, poor, impoverished, broke, hungry refugees a thousand miles away.”

This week, that narrative completely fell apart, when hundreds of illegal aliens in the caravan, many waving Honduran flags, stormed the U.S. border after violently clashing with Mexican police.

The caravan is no longer thousands of miles away — it’s at America’s front door.

“The group immediately started throwing rocks and debris at the agents, taunting the agents. Once our agents were assaulted, the numbers started growing. We had two or three agents at a time initially facing hundreds of people at a time. They deployed tear gas to protect themselves and to protect the border,” San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said during an interview with CNN on Monday

“At least three agents were actually struck by rocks, but they were in tactical gear, so their helmets and their shields and bullet proof vests protected them from the rocks,” he continued. “We did have a few vehicles that were damaged, some windows and quite a few dents.”

When Border Patrol agents deployed nonlethal tear gas to disburse out-of-control crowds, the Trump administration was classified as inhumane. One Democrat went so far as to accuse Trump of deploying chemical weapons on innocent women and children. This claim is not only a lie, it ignores the fact that Obama’s administration also deployed tear gas to protect the border. In fact, they did it almost monthly, according to an analysis from The Washington Times.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, or CS, since 2010, and deployed it 26 times in fiscal 2012 and 27 times in 2013. The use dropped after that, but was still deployed three times in 2016, Mr. Obama’s final full year in office,” the paper reports. “Use of CS rose again in fiscal 2017, which was split between Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump, and reached 29 deployments in fiscal 2018, which ended two months ago.”

Further, the media claim that the caravan is made up of mostly women and children seeking asylum has been thoroughly debunked. Worse, women and children are being used a human shields to gain access to the United States and to drive an anti-law enforcement narrative.

“We ended up making about 42 arrests; only eight of those were females and there were only a few children involved. The vast majority of people we are dealing with are adult males,” Scott said. “I kind of challenge that it was a peaceful protest, or that the majority of these people were claiming asylum. … If they were truly asylum-seekers, they would’ve just walked up with their hands up and surrendered, but that did not take place.”

As anchors in Washington, D.C., and New York City sit thousands of miles away and dictate that the caravan is made up of women and children, reporters on the ground are blowing up the narrative. The majority of individuals being male isn’t a Border Patrol talking point and has been independently confirmed.

Stopping the caravan isn’t just about national security or preventing crime, it is also about national sovereignty and the rule of law. Those who seek to come to America must do so the right and legal way, not by attacking Border Patrol agents with lethal weapons.

Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.