Most Media Largely Ignore Immigration and Fentanyl Catastrophe
As a former journalist, I am baffled why media largely ignore the twin tragedies of 75,000 fentanyl deaths annually coupled with a humanitarian crisis, fueled by cartels
The only journalists, it seems, who are paying any serious attention to the incredible humanitarian crises at our southern border are Fox News’ Bill Melugin and a couple of others, such as John Davidson, at The Federalist and other center-right news outlets.
A quick check Tuesday morning at the Washington Post’s site reveals no story about the deaths of two young children trying to cross the Rio Grande last week. Or the New York Times, but at least credit them for a story about how Mexico’s federal government is batting criminal drug cartels responsible for so much death and misery. Major broadcast network coverage, other than Fox? Nil. At least CNN, under new management, is finally showing up but is more focused on migrants being boarded on busses headed to Washington, DC, and New York City.
Justthenews.com has the story:
The tragic drownings of two children — a 3-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl — trying to cross the Rio Grande into the U.S. last week has shined a troubling spotlight on a surge in migrant deaths at the southern border since President Biden took office.
The Biden administration is largely to blame for this rise in border deaths, according to experts and former senior border enforcement officials, who told Just the News the U.S. is encouraging historically high levels of illegal immigration rather than deterring people from making the dangerous trek from South and Central America.
Video shot by a Mexican TV station captured the harrowing scene of the young girl's body being pulled from the water near El Paso, Texas last Monday. The river's undercurrent had swept the girl from her mother's arms. Both were from Guatemala.
Meanwhile, the boy was killed separately near Eagle Pass, Texas in a similar drowning incident. A 2-month-old infant who was also found is currently fighting for his life in critical condition.
Both deceased kids were part of separate groups of migrants trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
Such incidents have become increasingly frequent, reaching unprecedented levels during the Biden administration.
In just the first nine months of fiscal year 2022, which began in October, authorities found 609 bodies on the U.S. side of the southern border, according to internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data reported by the Washington Examiner last month.
That's already an all-time high for a single year and more than the previous record of 566 migrant deaths counted during fiscal year 2021, when Biden became president.
By comparison, 247 bodies were recovered in 2020 and 300 in 2019, according to publicly available U.S. Border Patrol data.
According to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM), there were at least 728 migrant deaths and disappearances at the southern border last year — a 53% increase from 2020 and the most recorded since at least 2014, when the IOM began documenting migrant deaths. This makes the U.S.-Mexico border crossing "the deadliest land crossing in the world," according to the U.N. agency.
"The border crossing between Mexico and the U.S. has become the site of a grave human rights crisis, where thousands of people have gone missing and lost their lives during migration," says the agency's website.
The data shows drowning has been the No. 2 cause of death, only exceeded by "harsh environmental conditions/lack of adequate shelter, food, water," for incidents "recorded in North America" on the U.S.-Mexico border crossing route. However, for migrant deaths and disappearances "recorded in The Americas," drowning jumps to No. 1.
"Flash flooding is pretty common in the Rio Grande," said Andrew Arthur, resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. "And the land route into the U.S. is rugged, remote, and deadly."
In April, a Texas National Guardsman died after trying to save people illegally crossing the border from drowning in the Rio Grande. Authorities later identified the migrants as drug smugglers.
"The ports of entry are our front door — they're safe," said Ken Oliver, senior director of engagement and right on immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. "If you're going through the desert regions or the river, that's another story."
Since Biden entered office, there's been a sharp rise in the number of people who've crossed the southern border illegally. The figure reached about 2.4 million illegal border crossings met by U.S. border officials from July of last year to this past July, the last month for which there's publicly available data.
By comparison, there were just over 626,000 such crossings from January 2020 to January 2021, former President Trump's last year in office.
The figures under Biden don't include the roughly 800,000-900,000 illegal immigrants who are known to have gotten past border agents — or those who got past U.S. authorities without being detected.
A historic surge in attempted illegal border crossings has led to a historic surge in migrant deaths near the border, and experts say U.S. policy under the Biden administration is partly responsible.
"Biden has blood on his hands," said Oliver. "Border Patrol is overwhelmed."
More:
Tallies of the number of migrants dead or missing at the southern border don't include many who never made it to the crossing. Reports indicate, for example, that many migrants die in the Darien Gap in Central America on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border, but their remains are neither recovered nor reported.
Many migrants who make it to the U.S. before dying are discovered by local law enforcement.
Brooks County, Texas, for example, has the highest number of migrant deaths in the nation. So far this year, more than 70 bodies have been discovered.
Deputy Don White explained in a recent video by the Texas Public Policy Foundation that he personally takes on the costs of searching for and recovering the migrant bodies since the county can't afford it.
Many of these counties, primarily in Texas, take financial hits from dealing with the bodies. They need to call for a coroner, keep the bodies properly interred, and potentially return them to the families, experts explained, adding local cops can also be traumatized when they come across some of the bodies that show up on ranches.
Even if migrants survive, many of them are still forced to endure a range of atrocities from extortion to sexual assault during the trek. Many women bring morning-after pills with them in anticipation of being raped. Human trafficking for work or sex is also common, with smugglers and drug cartels involved in the abuse.
"They treat these migrants like pieces of garbage," said Morgan.
On Friday, U.S. authorities found a 4-month-old infant and an 18-month-old toddler in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, which borders Mexico. Smugglers left the young children in the desert "to die," according to a border agent.
Earlier this year, 53 migrants were found dead squeezed into an overheated tractor trailer.
As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg confirmed recently, the federal government worked to suppress news - if not spread disinformation - near the 2020 election about Hunter Biden’s laptop. I can’t help if they are suppressing this, too.
Scores of congressional delegations, and more recently, GOP women congressional candidates, are visiting the border to see the catastrophe for themselves. Little media coverage of that, either.
Mexican cartels are using and abusing immigrants to divert border security resources away from their lucrative trade of shipping Chinese-made fentanyl into the U.S., where it kills more people every year than we lost during the entire Vietnam War. across. And other than a few local media outlets, the bigs just shrug their shoulders.
Something is seriously wrong here.
I am not interested in hearing from leftists about how enforcing immigration laws is “anti-immigrant,” “anti-Christian,” or mean-spirited, while they ignore the carnage and crime their policies are responsible for. It is strong border policies and immigration enforcement that will save lives. And it can’t come soon enough.