Laura Ingraham admitted that separating migrant families caught crossing the U.S. border was "sad," yet the Fox News host still used her platform to justify the controversial Trump administration policy.
“Most people believe that if you come into the country illegally, it’s sad when your family gets separated. No one wants to see that, but it’s your responsibility,” she said on "The Ingraham Angle" Monday. "You made a decision to cross the border. You didn't go through a normal port of entry."
Without offering evidence, Ingraham claimed that one migrant mother, who was reunited with her daughter Monday after being separated at the U.S. border, said that America "doesn't have a heart." While the Trump administration's practice of tearing families apart has been suspended, many of the other children who were ripped away from their parents may never be reunited with them again due to logistical hurdles.
Like many on the right, Ingraham's justification of the Trump administration's actions also demonizes the Latin American families attempting to cross the border illegally in an attempt to flee corruption, poverty and violence in their home countries. With a focus on domestic policy, this nationalistic rhetoric also neglects to mention how U.S. foreign policy has destabilized nations in the region – a contributing factor to the current immigration crisis.
"For at least 150 years, the United States has intervened with arms, political pressure and foreign aid in order to protect the business and military elites of these countries who have prospered by impoverishing their people," The Nation reported. "We have trapped Latin American migrants between a foreign policy that drives them from home and a domestic policy that drives them back."
On Fox News, Ingraham only blamed the immigrant mother she referenced for her family's predicament.
"So, that's nice that she's reunited, but she made that decision," Ingraham continued. "So, I understand the heart argument. I get the compassion argument, but Americans have been struggling for, like, three decades and haven't seen a raise."
"So, there's only so much of the love you can spread around, when your own family, an American citizen or an American veteran on a street is having trouble," she continued.
Ingraham's remark s came during part of a larger segment on her show Monday titled, "The Democratic meltdown and the war on ICE." In it, the Fox News host slammed the mass demonstrations that happened over the weekend as Americans across the country protested the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy, which has left many separated families stuck in limbo.
"While they were fulminating about family separations – of course, at the border, despite the fact that President Trump ended that policy two weekends ago – do they not read?" Ingraham quipped, making no mention of the fact that more than 2,000 migrant children reportedly remain in federal custody.
The Fox News host also deployed a commonly-used conservative tactic: bringing up poverty or violence in urban cities as a way to shame activists by claiming they lack empathy for those impacted by violence in the U.S.
"Well, of course – what all of you smart people already know, because you watch 'The Ingraham Angle' – the left isn't really worried about the kids. Is that cynical?" Ingraham asked. "Well, maybe it is! If they were really worried about kids, they would be at regular rallies in Chicago and Baltimore, where still an unacceptably-high number of children are left fatherless or even die themselves because of gangbangers or fighting turf wars."
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