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CNN Anchor: The Problem at the Border Didn't Begin Under Trump

Obama in 2014: 'Do Not Send Your Children To The Border'

June 25, 2019

Anchor John King stated that the current border crisis existed before the Trump administration came into office on CNN's Inside Politics.

"This particular issue is not new," King said on air. "This is an interview going back to 2014 with the then-Democratic president of the United States. There are some Democrats who come to the table and say, 'Trump created this crisis, this is all about Trump.'"

"It maybe escalated under Trump," King said, "the numbers are certainly higher under Trump. But this has been a problem the United States government has had to figure out a solution to for a very long time."

He then played an excerpt from a 2014 interview with President Barack Obama where Obama addressed the issue of holding children at the border.

"The problem is that under current law, once those kids come across the border, there's a system in which we're supposed to process them, take care of them, until we can send them back," Obama said in the 2014 interview.

"Our message, absolutely, is don't send your children unaccompanied on trains or through a bunch of smugglers, that is our direct message to the families in Central America," Obama continued. "Do not send your children to the border. If they do make it, they'll get sent back."

King pointed out that President Obama was called the "Deporter-In-Chief" by some of his Democratic opponents. But he reiterated that the border crisis is not a spontaneous creation of the Trump administration.

"This issue has been unresolved, different pieces of it, for 20-plus years," King added.