‘Very safe’ teargas used on migrants
Trump stands firm on action
SAN DIEGO — President Donald Trump is strongly defending the U.S. use of teargas at the Mexican border to repel a crowd of migrants that included angry rock-throwers but also barefoot, crying children.
Critics denounced the border agents’ action as overkill, but Trump kept to a hard line.
“They were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas,” Trump said Monday of the encounter. “Here’s the bottom line: Nobody is coming into our country unless they come in legally.”
At a roundtable in Mississippi later Monday, Trump seemed to acknowledge that children were affected, asking, “Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the teargas is forming and it’s going to be formed and they were running up with a child?”
He said it was “a very minor form of the tear gas itself” that he assured was “very safe.”
Without offering evidence, he also claimed that some of the women are not really parents but are “grabbers” who steal children so they have a better chance of being granted asylum in the U.S.
Border Protection agents launched pepper spray balls in addition to teargas in what officials said were on-the-spot decisions made by agents. U.S. troops deployed to the border on Trump’s orders were not involved in the operation.