The mass rape and violence inflicted on women and children as they try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border is not a “manufactured crisis,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claim.

For years, the Democrats have portrayed themselves as the true champions of social justice and women's rights – but their response to President Trump’s address to the nation Tuesday showed that their concern for victims is just empty rhetoric.

In a historic address from the Oval Office, the president revealed some harrowing statistics about border security, stating that “20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States” in the last month alone, while roughly one-third of the women who attempt to cross our border illegally are sexually assaulted at some point along the journey.

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“These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs,” the president said. “One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims by far of our broken system.”

According to some reports, the statistic is even worse than that. A 2017 investigation estimated that 80 percent of women and young girls attempting to cross the U.S. border illegally fall victim to rape along the way.

In their shocking response to the president's passionate appeal for border security, however, Pelosi and Schumer insisted that the humanitarian crisis President Trump described doesn't actually exist. 

“This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our southern border,” President Trump said during his speech. “This is the cycle of human suffering I am determined to end.”

In their shocking response to the president's passionate appeal for border security, however, Pelosi and Schumer insisted that the humanitarian crisis President Trump described doesn't actually exist.

“Most presidents have used Oval Office addresses for noble purposes,” Schumer said. “This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”

Manufacture a crisis? Stoke fear? That might just be the most hypocritical argument the Democrats have ever made.

For over a decade, the Democratic Party has prioritized the issue of sexual assault as an urgent issue for government to address, most prominently by claiming that “toxic masculinity” is fueling a “rape culture” on college campuses.

In fact, Pelosi herself called on the U.S. government to combat the “scourge” of sexual assault at American colleges and universities back in 2015, declaring that “violence against women is something that has to be put to rest wherever it occurs” and even calling the problem an “an epidemic.”

Evidently, Pelosi believes the need to combat sexual assault “wherever it occurs” does not apply to the southern border, where it occurs with horrifying regularity.

Think about that for a minute and try not to feel sick to the bottom of your stomach. The Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to maintain a crippled immigration system that enables the assault and rape of women and children regularly. They don’t care about victims – just potential voters.

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If the Democrats really wanted to be champions of women’s rights and social justice, they would have embraced President Trump’s offer to address the ongoing tragedy on the border. Instead, Schumer and Pelosi dismissed the plight of those victims rather than acknowledge that the president made a valid point.

Pelosi and Schumer claim they support border security, but they sacrificed whatever credibility they might once have had by abandoning their concern for victims of sexual violence as soon as it stopped being politically advantageous.

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