What do you call justifying the caging of children?

I am not asking for a debate. But there has to be a fallacy term for when people justify the caging and cruel treatment of immigrant children by mentioning the laws passed by Obama And Clinton. The past legislation is not the issue. The deplorable conditions happening NOW is the issue but some will attempt to stop the argument with historical facts that do not address what's happening today. What is that? Tu Quoque?

I would need specific examples of the arguments being made. Simply justifying one's political positions is not fallacious, but how they do it can be.

...but some will attempt to stop the argument with historical facts that do not address what's happening today.

This would be a simple non-sequitur or even a red-herring, depending on the context.

Howard Kahane's book Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric and Dr. Bo's book Logically Fallacious discuss the fallacy of "Two Wrongs Make a Right." That's the issue here. If Obama did something wrong, that does not make it OK for Trump to do the same wrong thing. The same argument as "Jimmy is stealing, so it's OK if I steal, too." Not right at all.

There is also an empirical (not logical) debate as to whether the facts are right; i.e., some authorities say that Obama didn't in fact do the same thing. That's a separate question.

It would be s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g it a bit, but I would argue this is more closely related to the original use of the word "apologetics" in Law, rather than logic.

As wikipedia explains:

"The term apologetics derives from the Ancient Greek word apologia.[1]

In the Classical Greek legal system, two key technical terms were employed: the prosecution delivered the kategoria (κατηγορία), and the defendant replied with an apologia.

To deliver an apologia meant making a formal speech or giving an explanation to reply and rebut the charges, as in the case of Socrates' Apologia defense, as chronicled in Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates at his trial).

Although the term apologetics has Western, primarily Christian origins and is most frequently associated with the defense of Christianity, the term might sometimes be used referring to the defense of any religious or political posture in formal debate." (Italics are my own)

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics." Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

All the above responses are pertinent and accurate. The query doesn't provide a formal logical argument (ala Dr. Bo). So to hypothecate a formal argument is a stretch (but can be done as in the above-suggested fallacies). So, the statement may be better understood as rhetoric, an apologia, as suggested by Mr. Walker. Great question, as it is one often heard.

Someone’s advocating, supporting, promoting or in any way accepting the legitimacy of putting children in cages (and other policies that float down the same sewer) is a demonstration of their lack of humanity and very likely can be applied as a measure of their tendency to psychopathy. Adopting and using this policy as a way of appealing to one’s small-minded, hateful, spiteful and potentially racist constituency illustrates how far down the fascist scale of politics they are happy to move along.

Pretending to buttress this policy with references to Obama and Clinton is simply an instance of obfuscation and misdirection. “If I attack the people my potential supporters hate, those potential supports are more likely to actually commit to the support I crave.” Maybe the fallacy can be called the Appeal to Cruelty.

I agree with your assessment that it’s the tu quoque fallacy.

The extreme example cited by Wikipedia supports your contention:

In the trial of Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie, the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès tried to present what was defined as a Tu Quoque Defence—i.e., that during the Algerian War, French officers such as General Jacques Massu had committed war crimes similar to those with which Barbie was being charged, and therefore the French state had no moral right to try Barbie. This defense was rejected by the court, which convicted Barbie.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque<>

We could replace some words and get the gist of what Trump supporters have argued about detaining kids; e.g. Democrats have no moral right to criticize the Trump administration because the Obama administration had committed a similar moral “crime.”

On a side note, the tu quoque fallacy is one of the more common fallacies I see in political discussions. It’s prevalent on political Twitter, for instance. When Politician A levies a criticism of Politician B’s comments or policies, people think it’s clever to dredge up some old quote from Politician A in a tu quoque gotcha. But all they demonstrate, as do those who Like or RT it, is that they are ignorant of proper reasoning.

As students on this forum, let’s be sure we don’t fall prey to our emotions and join them on the side of ignorance!

tu quoque argues that "you do it too", justifying one error by a prior example.

However, the question is itself disingenuous in its formulation and attempt to deny the very thing it promotes: debate, and it contains appeal to emotion, a fallacy.

I suggest if Mr. Espinoza doesn't want a debate, he not post a question that's a statement, perhaps by asking how children are to be dealt with when the legal system has long separated those under arrest from their children.