Bush started the use of drones in war, but Obama bears the blame for them in my opinion, because he could have backed away from it but instead he doubled down. I would say the same for the treatment of refugees at the border. Obama built the cages, but Trump uses them with a sickening joy and enthusiasm.
The exception was some misaligned activists that accidentally posted Obama-era photos of "caged" children (behind a fence) a couple weeks early, which happened before some lawsuit forced the feds to release the children instead of housing them with their parents.
Sorry, no I am actually super upset about the ongoing detention and inhumane treatment of people at the border. ALSO about family separation, but the cages are immoral to me as well. Many of these people are not "illegal aliens" but people seeking asylum which is NOT illegal.
Nonetheless, the point of my comment is that children are not being caged, they're now being separated, as happens when suspects get arrested.
> Mirian G, a mother from Honduras, came to the U.S. with her young son on Feb. 20, 2018. She presented herself to immigration authorities and sought asylum, committing no crime. During her interview, Mirian provided immigration officers with several identification documents for her child which listed her as his mother. The next morning, Border Patrol agents took away her 18-month-old son with no explanation. She did not see him again for two months.
Even if she had crossed illegally, separating an infant from its mother like this for two hours is unacceptable to me, much less two months - and I would hope it would also be unacceptable to you.
Fortunately, today the mother would be told to stay in Mexico, and get to show up later at the port of entry for her asylum hearing. So we've fixed that problem.
2. Because many of us had a baseline belief that the Obama administration wouldn't enact punitive policies towards undocumented people for sport, and there's clear evidence that the current administration does that. So the calculus isn't the same.
3. There are drastically more caged children now, because the current administration adopted policies specifically intended to increase the caging of children, as a deterrent. So the policies themselves aren't the same.