The left wing response to the border crisis can be summarized as a series of misleading viral stories designed to vilify anyone who believes border control is a basic operation for a nation. It started under Trump with the panic over “kids in cages.” Unfortunately for a lot of the progressive dopes who shared this image below, it was taken in 2014 when Obama was president and Joe Biden was Vice President.
Take a look at these photos. #WhereAreOurChildren https://t.co/OZRG6YIXJB
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 27, 2018
This next photo of a little girl crying also went viral the same year.
@Gidi_Traffic John Moore, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with Getty Images, who captured several viral photos of the 2-year old crying girl at the US-Mexico border: “As the father myself, this photograph was especially difficult for me to take,” he wrote on Instagram pic.twitter.com/rxUkI2CXrU
— AustynZOGS (@Austynzogs) June 20, 2018
Time cut her out and made her part of a cover montage about border separation.
TIME’s new cover: A reckoning after Trump’s border separation policy: What kind of country are we? https://t.co/U4Uf8bffoR pic.twitter.com/sBCMdHuPGc
— TIME (@TIME) June 21, 2018
But she was never separated from her mother. She was just tired and hungry from being dragged hundreds of miles from home.
The photo of a Honduran girl crying as she and her mom are detained in Texas has grabbed worldwide attention and come to symbolize the debate about separating kids from their parents. Only on @CBSThisMorning, the border agent shows us what happened moments before it was taken: pic.twitter.com/T0owt3kvf7
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 22, 2018
Then there was the AOC-led campaign to re-label Border Patrol facilities “concentration camps”
This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.
This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis ⬇️https://t.co/2dWHxb7UuL
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019
This was also briefly popular with the left including some elected Democrats. But it faded and ever since Joe Biden was elected AOC hasn’t repeated that language.
And lets not forget the viral claim that Border Patrol agents on horeseback were whipping Hatian migrants. This was such a big deal that President Biden promised the people who did it would pay.
“Of course I take responsibility, I’m president.”
Pres. Joe Biden tells @rachelvscott the controversial handling of Haitian immigrants “sends the wrong message around the world,” claiming “there will be consequences.” https://t.co/kx01LNbaNT pic.twitter.com/o3kDDt5Giq
— ABC News (@ABC) September 24, 2021
Once again, it never happened. Even the photographer said so. Sec. Mayorkas knew it hadn’t happened even before he went to the White House and claimed it had.
Yeah, so even the photographer who took the pics that Dems and the media are sharing of the Border Patrol agents on horseback says “he and his colleagues never saw agents whipping anyone.”
“[I]t can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”https://t.co/PaoN2y4ide
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) September 24, 2021
Given how often the media has jumped on these stories only to have them fall out from under them, you’d think they might learn to be more careful. But it seems that’s never the case. Two days ago another story went viral. The AP headline read, “US says Texas blocked border agents from entering park to try to save 3 migrants who drowned.”
The U.S. Homeland Security Department said Saturday that Texas denied federal agents access to a stretch of border when they were trying to rescue three migrants who drowned.
The federal government’s account came hours after U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said the Texas Military Department and Texas National Guard “did not grant access to Border Patrol agents to save the migrants” Friday night. Mexican authorities recovered the bodies of a woman and two children Saturday across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
“This is a tragedy, and the State bears responsibility,” said Cuellar, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee for homeland security, in a statement.
Some version of this story was published at nearly every major news site, but once again it turns out the headlines were wrong. Unfortunately, a woman and two children did drown in the Rio Grande that night but it happened a full hour before Border Patrol showed up. By the time they arrived it was far too late to matter.
The Biden administration once again pushed a false narrative at the border, now refuted by their own DOJ.
White House claim: “On Friday night, a woman and two children drowned near Eagle Pass, and Texas officials blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency… pic.twitter.com/B8bsP13Mxv
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 16, 2024
The rest of Melugin’s tweet reads:
“On Friday night, a woman and two children drowned near Eagle Pass, and Texas officials blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency assistance.”
DOJ filing: The migrants had already drowned at 8pm, and Border Patrol didn’t inform Texas until an hour later at 9pm.
This, like the horseback patrol “whipping” claims – took off as a false narrative, generating headlines that claimed Texas blocked a federal rescue effort, leading to the drownings of three migrants. The DOJ now confirms, those migrants had been deceased for an hour before Texas was even alerted about it.
Drew Holden points out that lots of outlets ran with this story and only a few have corrected it since.
The same can’t be said about @washingtonpost, who at least as of early this afternoon were content to leave up their initial story and tweet parroting a Dem congressman repeating the same dishonest assertion about Texas. pic.twitter.com/NI9LGHc5ZX
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Even @AP, who frequently update their headlines, still had this one up.
An important point: it isn’t accurate anymore to claim “US says” as AP does here because Justice has disputed the claims.
Forget misleading. The headline is just wrong. pic.twitter.com/o4iNumYBDM
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Again, the way @NBCNews blames this on “federal officials” is misleading.
The details have been updated. Why hasn’t the reporting followed? pic.twitter.com/Ljl34jui9W
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Or this tweet, @politico? pic.twitter.com/aupAppCrsI
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Credit where it’s due. The NY Times at least got the underlying facts right in the story.
@nytimes did a little better, all things considered. They still implicated Texas without cause in a way that would clearly lead an uninformed reader to think Texas did something they didn’t. But they at least reported the details. pic.twitter.com/kDTJUrPfcZ
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Some outlets were just outright dishonest.
Some outlets took the initial reporting and tried to push it even further, leveraging the inaccuracy to attack Texas and Republicans.
That included @RollingStone, @Forbes (cmon guys), @MSNBC (not surprising) and @Newsweek (embarrassing) pic.twitter.com/gx3lqaOBFk
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 17, 2024
Anyway, you get the idea. The media is always ready to jump with both feet on any story that has the right villains. Cleaning up the mess later when it turns out they got it wrong isn’t something they seem to worry about.
In fact, with immigration becoming a big issue in an election year, I’m willing to bet this will happen at least once or twice more between now and November. It wouldn’t be that hard to get it right but they just don’t care.
Read the full article here