[Victory Girls] At least that’s what the frothing-at-the-mouth news media and outraged parents would have you believe. "White House Turns Away Foreign Students on Tour With Class," screamed headlines in the New York Post, with the story picked up verbatim by the Daily Mail Fail, and others. I realize that expecting the news media to be objective when it comes to this President is like expecting a freebie from a hooker, but really? This?What transpired on November 15th was a massive FAIL on the part of the school administrators and parents ‐ not EEEEEEVIL Trump or the EEEEEEvil Trump Secret Service.
A group of seventh-graders from Henry Hudson Regional School in Highlands braved a snowstorm on Nov. 15 for a long-awaited bus trip to Washington DC.
The bad weather and treacherous road conditions added hours to the drive and left no time for anything but their visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Even lunch on the White House lawn was canceled.
But the snafus didn’t stop there. Months in advance, the school had to send the White House visitors office a list of all students and adults expected to take the tour.
After making it through an initial checkpoint, Secret Service agents stopped three Henry Hudson students who didn’t have their passports or other identification required for non-US citizens.
Note the following in this report:
‐ Students "braved" a snowstorm (in a bus ‐ probably a heated one). They did so in treacherous conditions ‐ oh such heroes (as a parent, I would have questioned the wisdom of not rescheduling the trip, given the road hazards, but OK ‐ beside the point).
‐ It was a "long-awaited" trip to Washington DC, because we must whip up sympathy for these kids.
‐ A longtime security policy at the White House is now portrayed as a "snafu" without explaining whose screw-up it really was.
‐ Secret Service officers are portrayed as anti-immigrant for doing their job.
Guess what, critters! That’s not how any of this works, and no matter how hard you try to paint Trump, his Administration, and the officers who are tasked with protecting the President and his family, as evil anti-immigrant ogres, the facts don’t support your bias.