Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) speaks with the Rio Grande in the background as a group of U.S. senators hold a press conference at Anzalduas Park, March 26, 2021, in Mission, Texas.
The union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents has denied allegations that it had “set up smuggling incidents for media exploitation,” in a statement Monday. The statement comes one week after the Prospect questioned Border Patrol agents’ involvement in two videos of a migrant trafficking incident—one that went viral on right-wing media and one that was aired on CNN.
Immigrant rights’ advocates and others familiar with how migrants typically cross the Rio Grande say that the scenes in these videos raise questions about their authenticity. For one, migrants rarely cross in broad daylight or in such large groups, which would allow ample time for the Border Patrol to see and apprehend them. As well, smugglers also always try to blend in with the group because if they are caught, the smuggler faces stiffer penalties. In the videos, a large number of immigrants are lined up to cross, and the group that is filmed crossing includes a smuggler dressed, unlike the immigrants, to conceal his identity.
If true, the allegations against the members of Border Patrol would constitute a crime. In its statement, the union also denied any prior knowledge of the video of a smuggler on a raft and invited the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct an “open and transparent” investigation into these allegations. “We invite this investigation because we know we have done nothing wrong,” the statement read. The union also denies any efforts to manipulate the story, but did not point to any specific evidence to refute the allegations that members may have been involved in the incident.
Late Thursday afternoon, Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) also sent a statement to the Prospect regarding the video distributed across social media that showed a migrant trafficking incident across the Rio Grande. Cuellar, a conservative Democrat in a border district, acknowledged that the video he tweeted March 11 was given to him by the Border Patrol.
“I work closely with the men and women of Border Patrol to stay informed to what’s happening on the ground,” he said in the statement. “We all are seeing thousands of people coming across the river on a weekly basis. This video was provided by Border Patrol. I trust the men and women of Border Patrol.”
The video he shared on Twitter had no audio, except the music Cuellar layered on top of the video. It appears to be the same as the one shared by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who attributed the video to Tripwires & Triggers, a local far-right media outlet that covers the border. Larger conservative outlets often pick up the local outlet’s stories. Taken from the American side of the Rio Grande, the video shows a group of migrants crossing the river, ferried by a smuggler in a black ski mask and camouflage fatigues.
Unlike the Cuellar video, where the audio track was music, in this one two men behind the camera can be heard laughing and greeting the smuggler in Spanish. At one point, one man asks the other, “Do you ever hook those guys up?” To which the other responds, “Yeah. Two or three of ’em. They’re always Grade A.” Later, the same speaker refers to the migrants, saying, “They’re twenty-sixes,” possibly referring to Section 1326 of the U.S. Code on deportation. This likely indicates that the migrants in question would have a record of a former deportation.
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Cuellar’s acknowledgment that Border Patrol gave him the video also raises questions as to why Border Patrol would have access to the video and share such an incident, and yet does not appear to have a record of apprehending the migrants in the video.
On Saturday, two days before the union issued its statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent a statement of its own to the Prospect. “CBP categorically denies any suggestion that the United States Border Patrol (USBP) staged a migrant crossing for a media story,” the statement read. CBP acknowledged that the area is a highly trafficked area, and pointed to a temporary outdoor processing facility to “quickly place family units into administrative proceedings.”
The agency did not respond to follow-up questions, and Roy has not responded at all to the Prospect’s questions.
The video shows a similar scene to one that CNN filmed later that same day. In the clip narrated by CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera, migrants are ferried across the river by a man in a black ski mask and the same clothing worn by the man in the Cuellar/Roy video. CNN says that their crew watched the boat go back and forth six times. Immigrant advocates at the border say the same questions of authenticity raised about the video that went viral across conservative media apply to the CNN story as well. Although the two videos appear to have been taken at different times on the same day, there are many overlapping similarities. CNN’s boat ride was initiated by a local Republican candidate, who guided the boat to the site of the immigrant crossing. That candidate and several other men who accompanied the CNN crew have posted anti-immigrant sentiments on Facebook, according to screenshots.
Although CNN never responded to the Prospect’s questions before or after they ran their story, their media reporter, Oliver Darcy, wrote on the situation in the network’s Friday “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Darcy denied that CNN “staged” the crossing, which was never the allegation, and pointed to Border Patrol’s denial to back up his claim.
After the Prospect ran its story, several national and local outlets picked up the story. In a column about the media and the border for the Arizona Daily Star, Tim Steller spoke to a retired Border Patrol sector chief from Tucson about the videos. “It was suspicious,” Victor Manjarrez told Steller. “There’s no fear [among the immigrants]. Honestly, it looked like they’d spoken with each other. I don’t think there was a whole lot of anything real in that thing.”
The questions about the videos come as a crisis narrative around the border is gaining steam. Though most experts agree that the number of unaccompanied children at the border is an urgent humanitarian concern, the rising number of apprehensions is not so different from previous cyclical rises in migration due to seasonal changes and crises such as the double hurricanes that shook Central America this past fall. In fact, during fiscal year 2019 under President Trump, apprehensions of migrants at the border jumped more from January to February than they have during the current year.
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Yet it’s not just far-right or conservative media running with a manufactured crisis narrative at the border. Every Sunday show last weekend focused on the border. A recent Morning Joe episode was rife with factual errors about the border “crisis.” The New Republic, The Week, and Columbia Journalism Review reflected on this media trend over the last week. The Washington Post, which had run a story headlined “Inside the Biden Administration’s Failure to Contain the Border Surge,” later ran an analysis piece that said the “surge” was “actually a predictable pattern.” And at his first press conference, President Biden addressed multiple questions on immigration and fielded not a single question on the pandemic that still rages.
Last Friday, NBC reported that, led by Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, Texas Department of Public Safety’s Tactical Marine Unit will take senators on a tour of the Rio Grande in boats outfitted with machine guns.
