President Donald Trump on Tuesday seized on an error by liberal activists who tweeted photos of young-looking immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in steel cages and blamed the current administration for separating immigrant children from their parents.

The photos were taken by The Associated Press in 2014, when President Barack Obama was in office. The photo captions reference children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors.

Early Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires. Dems must agree to Wall and new Border Protection for good of country…Bipartisan Bill!”

The immigration debate has reached a fever pitch in recent months following reports that since October about 700 children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have been separated from their parents.

The number of separated minors is expected to jump once Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy is enacted. That policy, embraced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, would enforce criminal charges against people crossing the border illegally with few or no previous offenses. Under U.S. protocol, if parents are jailed, their children would be separated from them.

“The parents are subject to prosecution while children may not be,” Sessions said earlier this month. “So, if we do our duty and prosecute those cases, then children inevitably for a period of time might be in different conditions.”

Enter a June 2014 online story by The Arizona Republic titled “First peek: Immigrant children flood detention center.”

The story linked to photos taken by AP’s Ross D. Franklin at a center run by the Customs and Border Protection Agency in Nogales, Arizona. One photo shows two unidentified female detainees sleeping in a holding cell. The caption references U.S. efforts to process 47,000 unaccompanied children at the Nogales center and another one in Brownsville, Texas.

How or why the story resurfaced on social media four years after it was published is unclear. But among those who took notice was Jon Favreau, Obama’s former speechwriter.

In a now-deleted tweet, Favreau wrote: “This is happening right now, and the only debate that matters is how we force our government to get these kids back to their families as fast as humanly possible.”

Other liberal activists also linked to the Arizona Republic story using the hashtag “WhereAreOurChildren,” which grew out of testimony in April by a federal official that the U.S. government had lost track of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minor children it placed with adult sponsors in the U.S.

Favreau did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment. But he later issued a corrected tweet: “These awful pictures are from 2014 when the government’s challenge was reconnecting unaccompanied minors.”

He added: “Today, in 2018, the government is CREATING unaccompanied minors by tearing them away from family at the border.”

As the immigration debate lit up social media over the weekend, Trump on Saturday falsely claimed that there was a “horrible law” that separates children from their parents after they cross the border. He has said previously that “we have to break up families” at the border because “the Democrats gave us that law.”

That’s not true. There’s no law mandating that parents must be separated from their children. But if an administration opts to impose harsh criminal charges against an adult for crossing the border illegally, their children would be separated from them as a result.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has defended the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from parents when the family is being prosecuted for entering the U.S. illegally, telling a Senate committee earlier this month that removing children from parents facing criminal charges happens “in the United States every day.”

A 2008 law, passed unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, says children traveling alone from countries other than Mexico or Canada must be released in the “least restrictive setting” – often to family or a government-run shelter – while their cases slowly wind through immigration court. It was designed to accommodate an influx of children fleeing to the United States from Central America.
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The U.S. declared Tuesday that religious freedom is “under assault” across the globe.

“The state of religious freedom is dire,” said Sam Brownback, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, as he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the agency’s annual report concluding that many countries throughout the world crack down on religious adherents and punish them harshly for their beliefs.

Even as the U.S. works toward a June 12 summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the State Department report singled out the reclusive communist nation for abuses against believers.

“The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests,” the report said. “An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions.”

Brownback said, “What we know is we got a gulag system operating in North Korea, and it’s been a terrible situation for many, many years. You can go on satellite — open source satellite — and see some of these camps and their situation. You have people that have gotten out and written about the situation in North Korea. We know it is very difficult and desperate, and particularly for people of faith, and that’s why North Korea has remained a country of particular concern for us.”

The report also condemned abuse of religious believers in China, Iran, Russia and other countries.

The State Department said Beijing “continued to exercise control over religion and restrict the activities and personal freedom of religious adherents when the government perceived these as threatening” the state or the ruling communist party. The report estimated that “hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims have been forcibly sent to re-education centers, and extensive and invasive security and surveillance practices have been instituted.”

Brownback said, “You know, that was a concept you thought was gone decades ago and (is) being experienced in growing amounts. The report cites a number of very, very troubling concerns and a decline in religious freedom” in China.”

In Iran, the report said the government continues to deal harshly with religious minorities, including executing or imprisoning those convicted of waging “war on God.”

The State Department said that in Russia, “Authorities continued to detain and fine members of minority religious groups and minority religious organizations for alleged extremism. In one case, there were reports that authorities tortured an individual in a pretrial detention facility. Authorities convicted and fined several individuals for ‘public speech offensive to religious believers.’”

In releasing the report, Pompeo said, “Advancing liberty and religious freedom advances America’s interests. Where fundamental freedoms of religion, expression, press and peaceful assembly are under attack, we find conflict, instability and terrorism. On the other hand, governments and societies that champion these freedoms are more secure, stable and peaceful. So, for all of the reasons, protecting and promoting global respect for religious freedom is a priority for the Trump administration.”

Pompeo said the State Department is convening a ministerial meeting July 25-26 to promote religious freedom, inviting foreign diplomats from “like-minded governments, as well as representatives of international organizations, religious community, and civil society to reaffirm our commitment to religious freedom as a universal human right.”

He said the gathering “will not be just a discussion group, it will be about action. We look forward to identifying concrete ways to push back against persecution and ensure greater respect for religious freedom for all.”

Brownback said, “The problems are great, but the opportunity for change is, too.”

 
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Hurricane Maria claimed more than 4,600 lives in Puerto Rico last year, more than 70 times higher than the U.S. government’s official death toll of 64, according to a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The findings, based on a survey of thousands of Puerto Rican residents conducted by researchers from Harvard University and elsewhere, show the fatalities occurred between September 20 and December 31, 2017.

The U.S. government’s emergency response to the storm had been criticized and President Donald Trump, was faulted when much of the U.S. territory remained without power for months.

The researchers said their latest estimates may be too low and “underscore the inattention of the U.S. government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico.”

Maria inflicted about $90 billion in damage to Puerto Rico, which was already grappling with an anemic economy. Researchers have said Maria was the third costliest tropical cyclone to strike the U.S. since 1900.

More than 8 months after the storm, the territory has been slow to recover. Residents continue to suffer from a lack of water, an unstable power grid and a dearth of essential services, forcing many residents to leave.

While the new study puts the death toll at 4,645, it says there is a 95-percent chance the actual number could be as low as 793 and as high as 8,498. Earlier independent studies have estimated the death toll at about 1,000.

The results of the latest study were based on randomly conducted in-person surveys of 3,299 of an estimated 1.1 million Puerto Rican households earlier this year, including homes in remote areas.

To ensure unbiased results, residents were not paid for their responses and were told their answers would not result in any additional government assistance.

Researchers said they could not compare their findings with the latest government tally because their request for access to the numbers was denied.

The Puerto Rican government stopped publicly disclosing its hurricane death figures in December.
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Diving into the midterm elections, President Donald Trump is seeking to build a stable of Republicans who will help promote his agenda and serve as a check on Democrats aiming to win majorities in Congress.

Trump is traveling to Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday to raise campaign cash for Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the party’s leading U.S. Senate hopeful in Tennessee, and headline a rally with his most loyal supporters.

Blackburn is expected to face Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen to replace Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who is retiring. The Tennessee campaign is among several races crucial to Trump’s plans to maintain control of the Senate, where Republicans are defending a narrow two-seat majority.

Trump is planning a series of political rallies and events in the coming months to boost Republicans and brand Democrats as obstructionists to his agenda. The president held a similar rally in Indiana earlier this month, appearing with Republican businessman Mike Braun and ripping Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly as a “swamp person” who refused to aid the GOP agenda.

“We’re not getting complacent. We can’t,” Trump said in Elkhart, Indiana. “If we elect more Republicans we can truly deliver for all of our citizens.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump raised the prospect of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe affecting the November elections and blamed Democrats for “Collusion.” On Twitter, he said the “13 Angry Democrats” on Mueller’s team “will be MEDDLING with the mid-term elections, especially now that Republicans [stay tough!] are taking the lead in Polls.” Mueller is a Republican.

Beyond Indiana, Trump has used his Twitter page to boost California Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox, hoping to strengthen the party’s chances of securing a spot on the ballot in November. He has also set his sights on Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is seeking re-election in a state Trump carried in a landslide. The two states have primaries on June 5.

The president is raising money later in the week in Texas to benefit Senate Republicans and his 2020 campaign.

Tennessee has a history of electing centrist senators and the race could be complicated by Corker’s up-and-down relationship with Trump. Corker once said Trump had turned the White House into an “adult day care center” and the president tweeted that Corker “couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee.”

Yet Corker was in the Oval Office on Saturday, receiving praise from the president for his help in securing the release of a man imprisoned in Venezuela. The breakthrough happened after Corker held a surprise meeting in Caracas with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

In his final year in the Senate, Corker has called Bredesen a friend and said he won’t actively campaign against him.

Trump, meanwhile, offered an early endorsement of Blackburn in April, calling her on Twitter “a wonderful woman who has always been there when we have needed her. Great on the Military, Border Security and Crime.”

Blackburn, who served on Trump’s transition team, has embraced the president and called herself a “hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative.”

Bredesen, who is attempting to become the first Democrat to win a Senate campaign in Tennessee since Al Gore in 1990, has aired TV ads in which he says that he’s “not running against Donald Trump” and that he learned long ago to “separate the message from the messenger.”

 
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