The Trump administration received criticism over the weekend after using tear-gas on migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S. and Mexico border at the San Ysidro port of entry.
However, according to Homeland Security data, the same tear-gas agent that was used on Sunday is used fairly frequently and was used more than once a month during the later years of President Barack Obama's administration.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used the gas, 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, or CS, since 2010, and deployed it 26 times in fiscal 2012 and 27 times in 2013. It was also deployed three times during Obama’s final full year in office.
Pepper spray is also often used by border authorities and saw a decade-high record of 151 instances in 2013 under the Obama administration.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council called out critics of Sunday's incident questioning where they were when tear gas was deployed under Obama.
“This policy that we use was an Obama-written policy and it was used in 2013 at the same port of entry,” he told CNN.
“The facts are, the policy written under President Obama allows us to use tear gas to disperse a crowd that was very dangerous,” he continued.
The violence and chaos at the border has led Mexico to deport 98 of the some 9,000 caravan members camped in Baja California.
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