Apparently, the viral videos showing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in San Diego literally snatching up a mother in front of her kids that has now gotten more than 11 million views on Facebook has CBP explaining itself some more. Here is what CBP San Diego posted Friday evening on Twitter:
Now, you would think that the statement is definitive and clear, but read it a few times and realize that it isn’t, and is in fact, just typical governmentspeak. Words like “human smuggler facilitator” (what does that even mean?) and “confrontational agitators” (her family) to describe what happened to Perla Morales-Luna say it all. It just seems to us that CBP got caught on camera and now it’s trying to create a narrative that Morales-Luna was a serious criminal threat. But when you read the statement (read it again), it’s just a lot of words and overexplaining to make CBP look good. If CBP were actually fully transparent, it would share more information about the “organization” or how it has no problem doing undercover work.
As Andres Moreno II, Morales-Luna’s own lawyer told TIME this weekend:
“You can do your job without causing such a dramatic separation of family members,” Moreno said. “It’s overkill.”
Morales-Luna denies being part of a smuggling organization and “has no idea what they’re talking about,” Moreno said before the Border Patrol issued its more detailed statement.
These are the videos in question:
