Since Joe Biden’s first days in office, there has been an existential crisis raging at our country’s southern border.
This crisis is apparent to anyone willing to remove their political blinders and observe the reality on the ground. Sadly, though, most of the political establishment in Washington, the coastal elites in their gated communities, and the open-borders bureaucracy have shown they are unwilling to do just that. They would, however, prefer to remain ignorant. As would the corporate media.
Some journalists have done exemplary work covering the border crisis for months — Bill Melugin and Griff Jenkins of Fox News, Townhall’s Julio Rosas, Jennie Taer of The Daily Caller, NewsNation’s Ali Bradley, and Newsmax’s Jaeson Jones all come to mind.
But for the most part, the media have not only largely ignored the border crisis but have actively participated in the Democrats’ campaign to mislead and deceive Americans about the scope, scale, and causes of the crisis.
I experienced this deception firsthand last week. The Heritage Foundation, where I serve as a visiting fellow, was contacted by two reporters from The Arizona Republic — Rafael Carranza and Daniel Gonzalez — who wanted to speak with someone about the number of illegal aliens who have entered the United States since Biden took office. I agreed to the interview, and despite encountering fierce resistance to the case I made, I laid out in great detail the facts about the number and quality of people who have entered this country under Biden.
In the end, The Arizona Republic published a piece that actively misleads its readers. Carranza, whose name appeared on the byline, failed to accurately report the number of individuals who have improperly entered the country, under-counting the correct number by more than half a million.
Even more egregiously, he failed to mention the massive number of got-aways who have illegally crossed into our country and never get apprehended by Border Patrol.
Known got-aways, or those whom Border Patrol know come across the border because they’re caught on cameras, sensors, or even seen by agents, have totaled more than 1 million since Biden assumed office. And that number continues to grow as more and more agents are pulled off the frontline.
Border Patrol also knows that every month, a certain number of illegal aliens slip across the border and are not further tracked. As someone who used to oversee the Border Patrol, I can tell you this number can be up to twice as many as the known got-aways. This means there is very likely another 1-2 million unaccounted-for illegal migrants who could have easily entered the country under the Biden administration.
Carranza included none of these figures and omitted others I gave. In doing so, he reported a conclusion about the number of improper border crossings that was inaccurate and misleading. The rest of his piece contained further attempts to downplay the border crisis and make excuses for why it’s occurring.
He even went so far as to blame the historic number of apprehensions of illegal aliens on recurring arrests of repeat offenders. But because of how Border Patrol records repeat offenders, this simply can’t be the case. More importantly, whether it’s a first-time offender or someone crossing for the 10th time, that individual consumes the time and resources of Border Patrol agents and prevents them from maintaining guard.
Incidents like this demonstrate why trust in corporate media is hitting an all-time low. Instead of reporting the facts and letting Americans make up their own minds, activists withhold vital information that would provide more context and clarity to stories that affect the daily lives of the American people.
Most of the time, these outlets are content to simply ignore the crisis, pretending it doesn’t exist. But when they weigh in, they either miss the truth or willfully mislead the public.
A recent Los Angeles Times op-ed asserted, “There is no question that there is a crisis at the border. … But it is a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by political posturing, not one caused by an uncontrolled border.” A columnist for the Arizona Daily Star wrote about the “five ways you can tell today’s border panic is trumped up.” And without a hint of irony, in August 2021, a CNN fact-check concluded, “While migrants continue to arrive at the US-Mexico border in record numbers, it’s false to claim that the border is ‘open.’”
Reporters may disagree with the vast majority of Americans who support securing our borders and enforcing the law, but they cross the line when they lie about the dire reality we’re facing.