AUSTIN, Texas – In government communiques, press conferences, and congressional hearings under oath, top Biden administration officials have repeatedly blamed a particular bogeyman for the unrelenting, historic southern-border mass-migration crisis now into its third year: human smugglers who spread “disinformation” that the border is “open.”
“DHS expects that encounters at the Southwest Border will increase as smugglers spread disinformation…” read a typical May 1, 2021 Department of Homeland Security Fact Sheet about a major upcoming policy shift.
When immigrants have died in trucks or trains while being smuggled into America, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House spokespeople have gone straight to the explanation of Mexican cartel disinformation.
The administration is now so invested in this narrative that, in a May 10 press conference, Mayorkas once more blamed a major border surge on “smugglers…hard at work spreading false information.” Then, the secretary announced a government salve: a “digital marketing campaign” to “counter the lies of smugglers” in Central and South America.
As someone who has interviewed thousands of U.S.-bound immigrants over the last several years, I can confidently attest that this narrative is a fabrication. It is pure political misdirection, deflecting blame away from Biden administration policies, which immigrants most commonly cite for why they come.
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