Axios Latino author Russell Contreras showed the world Tuesday the truly sorry state in which his mind was occupied with his insane piece, “Axios Explains: The myth of a U.S.-Mexico ‘open border’”. Yes, Contreras wants you to know that there’s nothing to suggest the U.S.-Mexico border was open by any stretch.
Who put him up to this piece? The White House? La Raza? Latin American drug cartels? Fentanyl drug labs? Either way, it’s a work of hackery that belongs in the Louvre.
From the get-go, Contreras argued “conservative pundits and politicians have upped accusations that some Democrats support ‘open border’ policies,” while “the Biden administration grapples with the soaring number of migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border”.
Given that known August border crossings hit 181,000 people with 1.5 million known gotaways since President Biden took office, it’d be intriguing to ask what he would consider open seeing as how that’s wired shut to him.
Contreras argued that “the big picture” and “reality is that the southern border is more fortified than it's ever been.”
If your eyes have started watering from laughing or rolling into the back of your head, stick around for these laughers of White House talking points under the label “reality check” (click “expand”):
Since 1992, the U.S. has quadrupled the number of Border Patrol agents — from less than 5,000 to nearly 20,000 today.
- Barriers, walls, and fences have been erected along portions of the 1,951-mile U.S.-Mexico border, in addition to new Border Patrol outposts and high-tech surveillance systems.
- The Border Patrol regularly breaks border arrest records, highlighting the difficulty of entering the country illegally.
- Most recently, Biden decided to go forward with a border wall in South Texas.
- Lines at ports of entry have gotten longer because of new requirements to enter the U.S., putting pressure to expand hours at newer ports of entry like the one in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
All that said, the funniest sentence came in the next section under the header of “[t]he history of the border”: “The United States hasn't had an open border since the early 1920s, when it was relatively easy for migrants to cross from Mexico or simply buy a boat ticket from Europe.”
Contreras really made sure his piece had everything, including the insinuation that the very premise of securing the border has origins in white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan since their rise “resulted in the passage of several immigration restrictions amid growing anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiment” with “[t]he Border Control created to keep out Chinese migrants”.
An interlude later fretting the “border became more militarized over the years” and acknowledging the 1990s and immediate post-9/11 landscape as further instances of fortification, Contrearas just came out and said the idea of an open border was a “myth” created by conservatives to criticize Barack Obama.
To round out this incredible piece, he flocked to none other than the libertarian Cato Institute to back him up with a supposed expert arguing “We don’t have open borders.”
Fox’s Bill Melugin tore into this insanity on X: “This is so bad. You can tell whoever wrote this hasn’t spent much time at the border or hasn’t bothered talking to the agents tasked with patrolling it.”
Bringing facts to the fold, Melugin added that Contreras should “[a]sk the 1.6 million + known gotaways how difficult it was to get in w/ chunks of the border unpatrolled while agents process” and how the piece never “acknowledge[d] Congressional testimony from Border Patrol leadership that the border is not secure.”
Melugin’s colleague Griff Jenkins also weighed in: “This is stunningly ignorant of the undisputed facts and images from the actual border… FY23 saw more illegal crossings than at any other time in history. Last month alone saw some of the highest monthly numbers for any month ever on record… visit the border.”
