the federalist

Migrant interviews disprove Biden DHS’s cartel ‘disinformation’ claim.

The Truth About the Southern Border Crisis

For years, the Biden administration has been blaming human smugglers for the historic mass-migration crisis at the southern border. They claim that these smugglers spread disinformation that the border is “open.” But as someone who has interviewed thousands of U.S.-bound immigrants, I can confidently say that this narrative is a fabrication.

Most immigrants do not spend fortunes on risky journeys based on disinformation from criminal strangers. Likewise, they would not stay home based on U.S. digital marketing campaigns claiming, “the border is not open.” They are not the mindless rubes the Biden administration makes them out to be.

Immigrants calculate travel decisions based on the experiences of immigrants who recently crossed, were admitted, and sent back selfies of themselves inside America. They also send testimonials and other hard evidence. They want to confirm with their cousins, friends, or long-time neighbors that the information conforms to the reality on the ground.

During a major surge of mass illegal crossings from Juarez to El Paso last month, senior officials repeatedly vowed that the border was not open, and that cartel disinformation tricked the poor dupes into coming. But the immigrants I interviewed that same day were not mindless dupes. They told me they were going because friends and family had just crossed and were residing in Washington State or were authorized on the Texas side to take buses to New York.

These are not mere internet wives’ tales. At the McAllen, Texas bus station, for instance, I met countless immigrants who had crossed illegally and were not sent back under Title 42 as sworn. Instead, they were released on their own recognizance to settle in interior America. They sent selfies of themselves — thumbs-up on the bus or in plush Manhattan hotel rooms — to everyone they know who had not yet crossed, advising them they could safely enter the United States.

The Biden administration can displace the actual blame by repeatedly blaming loathsome criminal con artists for enticing millions of ostensibly stupid migrants to invest thousands journeying over the American border. But the truth is that their policies, which have allowed millions to enter and stay, remain a major tractor-beam enticement to everyone who can see the open border on their cell phone.

Immigrants Are More Discerning About Disinformation Than Most Americans

Immigrants just released by Border Patrol in Del Rio corresponding with friends and loved ones up and down trail that they are about to board buses to U.S. cities.
Image CreditPhoto by Todd Bensman

The transfer of blame is a politically motivated lie. But naïve and ignorant American audiences and corporate media outlets are uncritically accepting this hogwash. 

Who is not naïve or uncritical of claims? Certainly not these Venezuelan gentlemen who I interviewed in Matamoros this month or hundreds of other immigrants I have met in recent years. These three young men were smart, savvy, and fully connected to the internet and social media platforms. All planned to swim the Rio Grande to Brownsville along with thousands of others. They were all moving because they knew someone who had recently gotten into the United States. 

“Do you all know someone who was just let in?” I asked. 

“Si, si, si,” they all answered in unison, naming friends all admitted into America or, in one man’s case, a cousin who had crossed and was happily staying in a Tennessee hotel. He showed me the paper with the man’s new address written on it.  

I have never met someone intending to cross the border who did not have a cell phone with internet access. In analyzing incoming information, I would argue that immigrants are more discriminating about disinformation than most Americans. They rely on primary-source evidence. 

If testimonials do not expose the disinformation narrative as a lie, then basic logic might help. Cartel operatives and smugglers are untrustworthy liars to be sure, but they are also good businessmen first. 

No one knows better than smugglers the power of immigrant selfies from the states. Telling a lie that the border is easily breached when it is not might work once or twice on the first fools — But not millions of times. 

Lying would kill business instantly, while happy immigrants who paid their smuggling fees and send back videos of their children enrolling in Chicago Public Schools keeps the cash register ringing for months and years. 

The half of America willing to fall for the Biden administration’s blame-displacement tactic could learn a thing or two from immigrants and their smugglers. 




" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."

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