Two Axios headlines from the month of March exemplify how the legacy media frames stories to support preferred narratives and political agendas. Now, the outlet has changed course on its prior claim that the border surge was worse in 2019 than it is now.
A week ago, Axios published an article titled “Border crisis not as bad as 2019… for now” that acknowledged U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions are on the rise but attempted to whitewash the truth by erroneously framing the dilemma as secondary to Trump administration outcomes. Reporters Stef W. Kight and Jonathan Swan declared, “The Biden administration is avoiding 2019’s never-before-seen levels of family migration — so far.”
Whereas the March 23 article covered up the gravity of the crisis, saying “nothing has changed at the southern border,” the facade fell apart when Axios acknowledged reality in an article on Sunday titled “Scoop: Kids’ border surge expected to last 7+ months,” as the curtain has been pulled back on what’s really going on at the border.
“Under current policies, the government is facing unheard of numbers of migrant kids illegally crossing the border this fiscal year — from 159,000 to 184,000,” Kight wrote.
“Even the low-end estimate is double the total number of kids who tried to cross during the crisis year of 2019. In 2014, the Obama administration struggled to care for just 69,000 kids who crossed illegally,” Kight continued. “The data obtained by Axios did not include projections for migrant families, but the Department of Homeland Security is expecting from 500,000 to 800,000 migrants crossing the border this fiscal year in family groups, the Washington Post reported Sunday. The numbers would be equal to or greater than in 2019, compounding the growing crisis.”
Legacy media outlets have adjusted their positions on the border after it has become clearer that the Biden administration is dealing with a full-on crisis like the United States has never seen before. Last week, the Washington Post corrected a headline about there being “no migrant surge” and subsequently claimed that the White House is seeing “a rush with no precedent” of unaccompanied minors and teens.
Among other revocations, Biden has canceled the border wall construction, as well as repealed Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and reinstated the Asylum Cooperative Agreement that was organized by the Obama administration to let Central American minors stay in the United States through a parole program.
