Monday’s evening newscasts turned a blind eye to an emerging threat along our southern border: a migrant smuggling network with ties to ISIS. It is difficult to find a rationale for doing so other than a willful refusal to report anything that would further damage the Biden administration (and/or campaign) on what is its weakest issue: immigration.
Watch this exchange between Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and FBI Director Christopher Wray:
Today @FBI confirmed they are very concerned about a migrant smuggling network at our border with ties to ISIS pic.twitter.com/NLKGIK8W86
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 11, 2024
That's a cut-and-dried assessment of a clear and present danger along the southern border, on the radar of our intelligence community as conveyed to the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. And absolutely NO ONE saw this story on their evening newscasts.
ABC World News Tonight came the closest, only vaguely touching on the issue within a broader report on the emerging threats hearing that focused more heavily on Ukraine and China. Here’s that portion, as aired on Monday, March 11th, 2024:
PIERRE THOMAS: The FBI concerned about the potential that terrorists and others might try to come through a porous southern border.
CHRISTOPHER WRAY: …a whole host of threats that emanate from the border. Some of them are criminal threats. We talked about fentanyl and violence. And then, of course, we have concerns that it could be a vulnerability that terrorist organizations could seek to exploit.
That’s it. Wray talked at length about a very specific threat, and yet it was inexplicably deemed unfit to air. And yet as bad as that was, it was far more than was offered to the public by CBS or NBC.
CBS only mentioned the hearing in passing within their report on the war in Gaza. No video excerpt. Only a passing citation of the Director of National Intelligence’s (Avril Haines) warning that “the war in Gaza will likely have a generational impact on terrorism.”
NBC omitted the subject matter completely.
At a moment time when the nation's southern border is at its most vulnerable, the Director of the FBI went before the Senate Intelligence Committee and warned about a migrant smuggling network with ties to ISIS. That, in conjunction with the outbreak of migrant crime across our cities, should've raised ALL the red flags, and drawn significant coverage across the dial.
To omit such a thing from viewers is a dereliction of duty in service of a political agenda, and is completely inexcusable.
