Watch: Laura Ingraham compares border detention centers for children to “summer camps”

The first reaction of most people who saw the distressing images and videos of children being kept in chain-link-fence cages and huddling under foil blankets, or heard their cries and screams, would not be that it looked like a summer camp.

But for Fox News host Laura Ingraham, that's exactly what came to mind regarding these immigration detention facilities.

On "The Ingraham Angle" TV show Monday night, the host said: “As more illegal immigrants are rushing the border, more kids are being separated from their parents and temporarily housed at what are, essentially, summer camps.”

She added: “The American people are footing a really big bill for what is tantamount to a slow-rolling invasion of the United States.”

Ingraham was speaking about the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on immigration, which has so far seen nearly 2,000 minors separated from their parents at the United States' southern border.

“The president is doing what we should have been doing all along: prosecuting all border crashers,” Ingraham continued.

Read: All the advertisers that have dropped Laura Ingraham after her David Hogg comments

Unsurprisingly, many on social media reacted with horror to the comments, with some resurrecting the #boycottlaura hashtag that rose to prominence when the TV host mocked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg for failing to get into college.

That transgression led to two dozen advertisers jumping ship from the show. While there have been calls for similar action this time around, so far there are no confirmed reports of advertisers pulling their support.

Rather than walk back her comments in the face of negative reactions, Ingraham doubled down, linking to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune that describes the places where the children are being kept as “a boarding school.”

However Ingraham failed to add the caveat included in the Tribune’s original report that makes is sound more like a prison:

“It’s surrounded by fencing that is backed by privacy netting, and a sign at the gate warns visitors that it’s under video surveillance 24 hours per day.”

Ingraham’s own comments were not the only controversial views on offer during the show. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the host that the comparing the detention camps to World War II concentration camps was over the top.

“It's a real exaggeration,” Sessions said. “In Nazi Germany, they would keep the Jews from leaving the country.”

Reacting to Sessions’ defense of the “zero tolerance” policy, CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti said: “When you have to explain to people why your policies aren't exactly like Nazi Germany, it's time to rethink your policies.”

Cover image: Laura Ingraham, American radio host, at the Conservative Political Action Conference sponsored by the American Conservative Union held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)