Fox & Friends host says child detention centers don't have cages: 'I'm from a farm community … it's more like a security pen to me'

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/Aaron Rupar)

published 18 June 2018

The Trump administration has faced unrelenting backlash over its new policy of separating children from their parents at the border, with outcry mounting in recent days following the release of new footage and images of the detention facilities. On Fox & Friends on Monday, host Steve Doocy apparently tried to stem the fervor by observing that while some people refer to the facilities as cages, "I'm from a farm community, I see the chain-link fences, it's more like a security pen to me."

As the Independent Journal Review's Josh Billinson observed on Twitter, "'They're not in cages, they're being kept like livestock' is not a great defense."

Regardless of whether they're using "cages" or a four-sided chain-link fence enclosures, the Trump administration has separated some 2,000 children from their families in the six-week period between mid-April and the end of May — a move that pediatric experts have described as "government-sanctioned child abuse." CBS News reported Monday that U.S. Border Patrol is "very uncomfortable" with the use of the word "cages" because while "they may be cages, [the people] are not being treated like animals."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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