Obama Administration used tear gas, pepper spray at border dozens of times, CBP data shows

priceofliberty:

violaslayvis:

As the Trump administration continues to face widespread backlash over its use of tear gas against Central American asylum seekers at the southern border on Sunday, data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has shone a light on just how common the use of tear gas and pepper spray at the border really is.

In a statement sent to Newsweek on Tuesday, the CBP said its personnel have been using tear gas, or 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS), since 2010, deploying the substance a total of 126 times since fiscal year 2012. Under President Donald Trump, CBP’s use of the substance has hit a seven-year record high, with the agency deploying the substance a total of 29 times in fiscal year 2018, which ended on September 30, 2018, according to the agency’s data.

However, the data also showed that the substance was deployed nearly the same number of times in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 under former President Barack Obama, with CBP using the substance 26 times in fiscal year 2012 and 27 times in fiscal year 2013. CBP’s use of tear gas appeared to decline in the following years, with 15 uses in fiscal year 2014, eight in fiscal year 2015 and even fewer in fiscal year 2016, with three recorded instances. 

As Trump took office, the numbers began to rise again in fiscal year 2017, climbing to 18 deployments of tear gas, before reaching fiscal year 2018’s record high of 29 uses. CBP also noted in its statement that in addition to using tear gas, the agency also “regularly uses” Pava Capsaicin, or pepper spray. In terms of pepper spray use, deployments appeared to soar under the Obama administration, with CBP personnel using the substance 95 times in fiscal year 2012, a number that climbed to 151 in 2013, before dropping to 109 in fiscal year 2014. 

Instances of pepper spray use appeared to drop significantly in fiscal year 2015, declining to 30 instances of use, before rising to 49 instances in fiscal year 2016 and 56 in fiscal year 2017, which would have seen some overlap between Obama and Trump’s presidencies. In fiscal year 2018, CBP said there were 43 recorded instances of pepper spray use under Trump. CBP has not immediately responded to a request for records outlining why tear gas and pepper spray were used in instances recorded since fiscal year 2012. 

In a statement emailed to Newsweek, CBP spokeswoman Stephanie Malin said that more than 1,000 individuals who were part of the “so-called caravan” “attempted to cross illegally into the U.S. by breaching section of the fence and using vehicle lanes in and near the San Ysidro Port of Entry” on Sunday. “The group ignored law enforcement agencies in Mexico and assaulted U.S. Federal Officers and Agents assigned to respond to the situation in San Diego,” Malin said. 

The CBP spokesperson said that “in response to the assaults and to defuse this dangerous situation, trained CBP personnel employed less-lethal devices to stop the actions of assaultive individuals attempting to break into the U.S.“ Malin said that CBP had been “preparing for weeks” for situations like the one that unfolded at the border on Sunday. 

“We have seen the use of violence by members of this so-called caravan who have attacked law enforcement personnel in Guatemala, Mexico and now the U.S.,” the CBP spokesperson said. She said that the agency “takes Sunday’s employment of use-of-force very seriously,” adding that the agency “reviews and evaluates all uses of force incidents to ensure compliance with policy.“ 

While CBP has said that some asylum seekers threw projectiles at Border Patrol agents, striking some personnel, the faction that rushed the border on Sunday represented a small group of the thousands of asylum seekers currently waiting in Mexican border town Tijuana to make their asylum claims at the U.S. border. 

In a statement released by the Mexican government on Monday, Mexico’s interior ministry reported through the National Institute of Migration that 98 people were slated to be deported to their home countries in connection with “violent” behavior at the U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, thousands of others face weeks, if not months of waiting in Tijuana to make their asylum claims in the U.S., with the San Ysidro Port of Entry only seeing around 100 claims or fewer processed each day.

Your fave would never.

Obama Administration used tear gas, pepper spray at border dozens of times, CBP data shows

coelasquid:

hungrylikethewolfie:

adragonwithbalanceissues:

I think my least favorite Hetero Trope is when the girl eats a burger or whatever and the dude is like “Wow, I like a girl who can eat” like what the fuck did your last girlfriend do, photosynthesis?

#also this isn’t news but what they mean is ‘I love a girl who can stay skinny but not annoy me with diet restrictions’  #men don’t actually love ‘girls who don’t go on diets’ or ‘girls who don’t wear makeup’ or ‘low-maintenance’ girls #what they DO love is women who can stay thin and flawless without ever having to reveal the effort behind it #it’s baffling to me! #like some Orwellian bullshit #you can’t knowingly demand women look a certain way and then complain when they go on diets lmao
(via @halffizzbin)

I was just thinking the other day about how they do a very similar thing with men in the media as well. It may not be as prevalent as with the female characters, but you almost always see superheroic male characters with extremely toned physiques in bars, drinking beer and eating pub food, portrayed as “man’s man” types who let their scrappy lives give them saran wrapped eight packs, when in reality the actors playing those guys are on extremely specialized diets coupled with intense workout programs. At the same time, “gym rat” characters who are actually shown doing the work a person would actually need to to maintain bodies like that are almost unilaterally made out to be stupid, vain, often meanspirited meatheads.

I remember watching the behind the scenes footage of a Jason Statham movie where he’s complaining about only being allowed to eat a plate of steamed veggies while the entire rest of the crew was having a party with cake or something. In the same movie his character is pretending to eat and drink things that real dude Jason Statham was not allowed anywhere near to maintain the idea that regular blue collar working class movie character got sweet abs by drinking beer and driving fast cars.

Then there’s the issue of these actors being harassed in real life when they don’t upkeep their intensely high-maintinence bodies between movies. Like, The illusion has been created that the jacked up bodybuilder physique is their effortless natural state of being, so any deviation from that must be caused by flawed behaviour and you see constant articles about how “[Popular Action movie guy] Really Let Himself Go” or people bombarding the actors’ personal accounts with fat jokes and accusation about their lifestyles

I guess the overarching issue is, people seem to be fed this idea that attractive qualities people may posses are only valid if they came naturally and effortlessly. The person with beautiful hair is desirable, the person who spends an hour making their hair beautiful is “self obsessed”, the person with the athletic body is hot, the person who goes to the gym every day and works on being more athletic is “a dumb jock”. It’s all appreciating the results while devaluing the effort it took to achieve them.

“Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

cryoverkiltmilk:

get-yr-social-work-rage-on:

intersectionalparenting:

isitscary:

daeranilen:

daeranilen:

daeranilen:

Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.

I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”

Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.

Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.

It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.

It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.

Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:

Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.

Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.

Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for – surprise surprise – depression.

Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”

TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:

  1. You do not respect their rights as an individual.
  2. You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.
  3. You probably haven’t been listening to them.

Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.

Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.

I love this post.

Too many parents wonder why their kids aren’t honest with them, and never realize their own non-receptive behavior and their failure to listen are the reasons why.

At one point or another, a child WILL keep a secret from you, but if it’s to a point where all their emotional feelings are being poured away from you as opposed to toward you, it’s probably because you haven’t been emotionally trustworthy or open. 

Adultism 😦

not to mention, you then take away one of your child’s coping mechanisms. if your parents read your journal, you’re never writing in it again. if your parents monitor your conversations with friends, you won’t tell them when you’re depressed anymore. if you have a therapist that reports what you say to your parents, you won’t tell that therapist anything. now all those methods of venting, feeling better, self-soothing, sorting out your issues, and feeling safe are gone.

“i want information” is not synonymous with “i want my child to talk to me.” those are two separate goals, but i think parents conflate them – i want my child to talk to me, but since they won’t, i’m stealing information from them. no. you didn’t ever want them to talk to you. you wanted information. if you wanted them to talk to you, if that was your entire end goal, you would have approached things completely differently. stealing information from a child ensures they will never talk to you again. but if all you want is information, then you can take it however you want and call it a parenting success.

if what you wanted was a child who talks to you, you would apply the same principles you do to literally any other human interaction in your life, and cultivate a relationship and trust.

I had to stifle my horror and revulsion at my last job, when a conversation about removing the door from a child’s bedroom came up, and I was only one not in favor of it.

May be worth noting I was the only millennial in a conversation that was otherwise full of baby boomers.

brideshead:

Love consists of a commitment which limits one’s freedom – it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one’s freedom on behalf of another. Limitation of one’s freedom might seem to be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful, and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.

St. John Paul II, from Love and Responsibility