By Elijah M. Carson
OwlFeed Journalist

On November 29, there was an event that was going on at the Mexico-America border, where asylum-seeking migrants were gathering to show their need to cross the border. One thing led to another and a small disturbance in the march became a riot with migrants pushing their way through the border. The border patrol used tear gas at the border to cease the riot.

This caused a lot of backlash in the first place, but something that got the attention of people and angered them even more was a picture that surfaced of a woman grabbing two little girls wearing diapers and rushing them while caught in tear gas. The most anger came because of the fact that children were present and they decided to throw tear gas anyway. Another criticism was how is it even legal to throw tear gas over the border in the first place.

Maria Rodriguez, a former California resident, who is now a resident in Avondale, questioned their reason why they went around the whole event, stating “What is crazy is the fact they would actually use tear gas on over the border? How are they allowed to throw harmful weapons into another country?”

Other politicians are criticizing the Trump administration, such as the California elected-governor, Gavin Newsom, who condemned the use of tear gas. While Jessica Lewis, an Avondale resident,  has a different opinion, saying, “I just think that they were only doing that to keep everyone from panicking. Immigrants are already a scary controversy, so more immigrants would be a problem.”

Using tear gas can be called a serious course of action. Tear gas was banned in international treaties around the world, though police and federal authorities are allowed to use it in case of a riot. Also, it has been used before, tear gas has been fired near the southern border with Mexico at least 126 times since 2012, according to data shared by Customs and Border Protection, meaning these incidents go back well into the Obama administration.

Though going back to tear gas on children, when reporters and paparazzi asked President Trump about the incident by the border, he replied with, “We don’t use tear gas on children.” While many still criticized President Trump, others stood up for him by saying that it was a misstep calculation, but still just because it was used in this case doesn’t mean they tolerate it and their policy is that they don’t use it on children.

While the criticism and debate still live on, everyone can agree on that this is sure a controversial moment in history.