Former Top Border Patrol Official Defends Pepper Spraying Children Because 'It's Natural'

Less than 24 hours after U.S. Border Patrol agents sent women and children scrambling for cover from a cross-border tear gas attack, Fox News has gleefully—if entirely unsurprisingly—decided that, actually, spraying chemicals on legal asylum seeking migrants is extremely good.

Punctuating the network’s breathless coverage of what they would have you believe is a full fledged invasion was Ronald Colburn, a former national deputy chief of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and current executive board member of the Border Patrol Foundation. In an appearance on Fox & Friends on Monday morning, Colburn insisted that the migrant caravan has “a core of violence to it” that evidently justifies shooting chemical irritants into children’s faces.

“These are persons that one would like to think are true refugees, but they’re not showing that in their actions,” Colburn said.

Colburn then claimed that, actually, tear-gassing a crowd of asylum seekers was extremely fine because, in his words, “the type of deterrent being used is OC Pepper Spray.”

“It’s natural,” Colburn said proudly. “You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it!”

Oh, well, in that case, I’m sure the mothers desperately trying to protect their toddlers from chemical asphyxiation have nothing to worry about!

You can watch Colburn’s entire interview with Fox & Friends on the Fox News website, if you must. But be warned—watching a smarmy defense of tear gassing children may result in an overwhelming desire to put your first right through your computer screen.