Many mainstream news outlets appear to be purposely and dishonestly overlooking key facts about the U.S.-Mexico border region in order to push a false narrative about a safe border.
Breitbart Border and Cartel Chronicles Director Brandon Darby took on the recent reporting by CNN’s Jim Acosta and some social media postings by Texas Democrat Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, where they try to claim the border is safe. Darby’s statements were part of his recent interview with Breitbart News Tonight.
In the case of Jim Acosta, Darby criticized the CNN correspondent’s video report where he stands next to the border fence claiming the area is safe. What Acosta did not report on was the constant gun battles in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, just south of his location. He also did not report that just one day before, authorities in Mexico discovered 17 charred bodies in the town of Miguel Aleman — an area about 60 miles west of where he was standing.
“For him to do that is so dishonest, it is outright propaganda,” Darby said.
Darby also spoke about social media postings by O’Rourke who continually claims that the whole border is safe.
“Well there are some places along the border that are safe like El Paso,” Darby stated. “They are safe because there is a wall, there is already a steel barrier there. In contrast. in Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican side of the El Paso- Juarez Metropolitan Area … it is one of the most violent places on earth. If you look at the murder rates since 2009 there, it’s insane”
In their effort to portray the border as a safe region, the politician and the CNN journalist overlook the fact that the border region is not only the U.S. side, but also the Mexican side of the border. These regions are home to some of the most violent cities in the world.
“For them to intentionally parse their words in a way to not have to mention the violence, death, and depravity that is happening within a kilometer from there — it is propaganda,” Darby said. “It is a Potemkin village they are setting up, it is dishonest, and it further silences the communities in Mexico. It further silences everything the migrants go through to get here, it further silences the more than 50,000 family members of the victims the cartels have disappeared. It further silences the approximately 200,000 who have been killed by the cartels in Mexico. It is not okay that they are doing this, it is propaganda.”
One of the most alarming trends in the way national news reported border issues dealt with the statement by U.S. President Donald Trump that one in three female migrants were sexually assaulted on their journey to the border.
“What have we become as a nation? What are our media folks doing?” Darby asked, referring to how that statement was ignored by most news outlets.
“The president was wrong,” Darby pointed out. “He said one out of three migrant women were raped on their journey from Central America to the border. That is the lowest estimate — most groups put it between 70 and 80 percent.”
The difference in estimates is because only a fraction of the women actually admit they were sexually abused, while the rest continue to suffer in silence, he explained.
According to Darby, most of the groups that work with migrant women operate under the assumption that all of the women that reach the shelters have been raped at some point along their journey.
“The fact is, the president said in an address that tens of thousands of migrant women have been sexually assaulted on their way to the border and no one is paying attention to that,” Darby said. “The border is not just the U.S. side. The border region is the U.S. and Mexico side and it has some of the most dangerous areas in the world, just by looking at the data.”
In regards to the coverage about authorities being able to cut through border fences as part of the testing, Darby explained that the apparent lack of a blue-collar background by the outlets reporting it possibly led to them failing to mention that the readily available “Sawzall” tool that was used to cut the fence was extremely loud and takes a long time to cut through the steel beams.
“There is no substance that we can put on the wall that someone can’t put dynamite or use a blow torch to get through,” Darby said. “That is why you need roads, cameras, and agents nearby so that when people try to compromise the integrity of the wall, the fencing, the agents can respond.”
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.