The photograph that will represent the caravan storming the border right now has been chosen by the shadowy figures gathered around alphabet-channel boardrooms. It was carefully chosen and then disseminated through all the major networks to elicit the most outrage and sympathy from the American public. It is nauseating in its transparency. It was covered by the Washington Post Yahoo, CNN, Reuters, TMZ, The Daily Mail and NBC, among others.

A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, runs away from tear gas in front of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico. (📷: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) pic.twitter.com/pz7hkxsN9g — NBC News (@NBCNews) November 25, 2018

Then, predictably, the mantra began that the United States is “gassing babies.” Go ahead and search that term on Twitter and you’ll see it repeated over and over. But I have questions about this that no one has answered.

Why are those kids half-naked and in diapers?

I’m looking around at the rest of the surging crowd and they’re all wearing pants. In fact, a lot of them have accessories and headbands and scarves and bags. None of the adults are running around without pants. Why are these two children naked from the waist down and in diapers when they both appear to be at least 5 or 6 years old? This is a glaring red flag. This image is supposed to make us feel grief at the state of these poverty-stricken children who don’t even have decent pants. But why does everyone else have them? How come the only people without pants in this photo are these children? Do they belong to these women? I don’t know how we could tell. I think if I took my five-year-old out on a criminal adventure and dressed him only in a diaper while I dragged him around, running from police, I would be arrested and investigated for child abuse and neglect. I’m quite certain that this behavior from me would be frowned upon as bad parenting. But I think we are supposed to look at these women and feel sympathy for their “plight,” even though we know we would be locked up if we did the same thing. I do feel sorry for those kids. They’re human shields. This isn’t a better life. It’s the event catalyst for post-traumatic stress disorder. And what’s this?

This person has this kid by the hair pushing them forward!!! pic.twitter.com/JpkxgEmWCi — DLyn123🇺🇸 (@Lyn123D) November 26, 2018

I am not familiar with the parenting technique of grabbing a child by the hair and shoving him. Someone needs to find this kid and ask him if he needs help. Is this a trafficker?

Why do these people get a pass when taking kids with them on a crime spree?

Not even a parent & I know that one of the top 2 rules for parenting is “don’t take your children to your crime-ing. Even if you’re a criminal & it’s bring your kid to work day” — The Doktor (@ScienceJesus) November 26, 2018

This is a very good point. If you know you are about to commit a crime and you know you’re going to run into riot police and rubber bullets, tear gas, or any other crowd control method, do you take your kids with you? It seems to me that if you do that, you assume the risk and are agreeing that it’s okay for your child to be on the receiving end of whatever law enforcement is bringing to keep you out. It’s not like they didn’t have a solid month of warnings from the president himself. Who does this to their kids? I’m supposed to believe they walked 1,000 miles, barefooted and bare-assed, and I just don’t. (And if they did, their parents should be tried and locked up for child abuse.) This article, written by an American living in Honduras, is a must-read. We are being lied to on an epic scale about the motivations of the caravaners.

Just two weeks ago, a single father who had his three children in our school suddenly decided to withdraw them from our program and join the illegal caravan in hopes of a better future. A respected friend of ours informed us that his children appeared on the news about a week ago as now being held in the Honduran capital seven hours away from where we live, where they will now be placed in an orphanage (while Dad continues marching onward to the United States). Is this the better life he was hoping to forge for his children?

To explain the situation further, several days ago my husband and two of our teen foster daughters, who were driving home around dinnertime, found the intersection of our rural neighborhood filled with close to 200 people all frantically trying to form another caravan to follow after the first. There were people screaming and trying to get more people to abandon their homes as they would gamble everything for their slice of the American Dream. My husband and teen daughters were devastated, as we know too well that many marriages are broken, children abandoned, lies believed and laws broken when people choose this route. Read the whole thing. It’s enlightening.

Why did Border Patrol deploy tear gas?

First, everyone needs to calm down. I would like the charge of “gassing babies” to stop. Tear gas is not deadly. It’s not comfortable, but no one is going to die from a little tear gas unless they have underlying conditions like asthma. Again, why did these people bring their kids on a crime spree where tear gas is a probability? I would suggest that if people want their children to never have contact with tear gas that they not bring them on missions to storm a sovereign country’s borders. Maybe they should have called the State Department and requested immigration forms and got in the queue. Instead, they lined up at our border and started pelting our officers with projectiles.

Today, several migrants threw projectiles at the agents in San Diego. Border Patrol agents deployed tear gas to dispel the group because of the risk to agents' safety. Several agents were hit by the projectiles. The situation is evolving and a statement is forthcoming. — CBP (@CBP) November 25, 2018

Apparently, our Border Patrol isn’t going to roll over like Mexico’s did. In my opinion, that’s all great news. The tear gas could have been avoided. Don’t throw rocks at police. That’s the first rule in staying tear gas-free. Anyone affected negatively by tear gas has no one to blame but the rock throwers.

The invading hordes are now throwing objects at our border patrol agents and our military. The invasion has become violent now. It was only a matter of time. Unreal! https://t.co/Qo42QX5VyM — OakTown ☢ Unfiltered (@hrtablaze) November 25, 2018

Are we back to calling Mexico a sh*thole now?

Literally every left-wing celebrity assured us over and over that Third World countries are NOT sh*tholes after the president reportedly made a crack about it. They tweeted photographs of themselves enjoying margaritas at resorts in various sh*tholes around the world and having the time of their lives. But that was last year. This year, Mexico is such a shi*thole that none of them are questioning the “asylum seekers” refusing asylum in Mexico. How does that work? I thought Mexico was a great place, definitely not filled with rapists or murderers, so why can’t Hondurans take the asylum offered to them on a silver platter by Mexico? Last year, Mexico was a place with great culture and food and music and beaches. This year, it’s a sh*thole and we’re just heartless to think anyone should have to stay there. I can’t keep up anymore. My head is aching with the strain of it.

Several thousand Central American migrants turned down a Mexican offer of benefits if they applied for refugee status and stayed in the country’s two southernmost states, vowing to set out before dawn Saturday to continue their long trek toward the U.S. border. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced what he called the “You are at home” plan, offering shelter, medical attention, schooling and jobs to Central Americans in Chiapas and Oaxaca states if they applied, calling it a first step toward permanent refugee status.

Seems like a great offer to me. If I’m fleeing Honduran violence and the Mexican government offers me shelter, health care, school, and a job, while America is offering me tear gas, I think my search is over! Further, it appears to run contrary to international law to turn down an offer of asylum from the first country you enter. Why isn’t anyone pointing that out? Nothing about this caravan seems legit. People who truly need help would take the help offered by Mexico. They don’t need asylum if they turned it down in order to break into America. Can’t everyone see this?

Is this the whole story?

If a picture tells 1000 words, how do we know all those words are accurate? The media wants us to see this photo and take from it the appropriate outrage people should feel at a mother trying to save her children from disaster. But recent media malfeasance makes it impossible to tell what is real and what is activism. Reality is bending because no one can believe anything the media spouts off in the first go-around during a breaking event. Remember the cage photo?

Still trying to find a source for this photo. Saw it on a FB friend’s timeline but looking for confirmation. Has anyone seen it elsewhere? — Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) June 12, 2018

This was a protest with a fake cage and kids used as props. The media let people believe that Donald Trump ordered dog cages to keep kids in. They really did that. It took 18 days for USA Today to debunk the story. Meanwhile, Americans believed that kids were being kept in dog cages. And after a photo like that goes viral there is little chance anyone will read a follow-up with the real story. The damage was done. I don’t think anyone should jump to any conclusions about a photo the media is spreading based on their past behavior. My general rule is to wait at least a week after one of these events to see what facts shake out and what new information becomes available.

https://twitter.com/hytallotomaz/status/1009300927340302336

The illegal invaders need to turn around and accept Mexico’s offer of asylum or go home to their families they abandoned — right now. A country that does not protect its borders is no country at all.