The same thing happened in 2014 when Obama blocked the media from reporting on the escalating border crisis. Breitbart news then came under attack for independently talking to border patrol and documenting the crisis. In the 2021 version the JoeBama administration is back to their old tricks.
Journalists are not being allowed to review or document the escalating crisis at the southern U.S. border. No pictures are allowed, and the Biden crew has instructed all government officials not to talk to reporters or journalists. They are hiding their motives behind the justification of COVID. NBC carefully attempts to call them out.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is restricting the information Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs can share with the media as a surge of migrants tests the agency’s capacity at the southern border, according to four current and two former Customs and Border Protection officials.
The officials say the restrictions are seen as an unofficial “gag order” and are often referred to that way among colleagues. The officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media about the topic.
Border Patrol officials have been told to deny all media requests for “ride-alongs” with agents along the southern land border; local press officers are instructed to send all information queries, even from local media, to the press office in Washington for approval; and those responsible for cultivating data about the number of migrants in custody have been reminded not to share the information with anyone to prevent leaks, the officials said.
Multiple news organizations, including NBC News, have requested access to or photos from inside overcrowded border processing facilities holding unaccompanied migrant children; they have been denied. The DHS press office released one photo late Tuesday of a mother and child undergoing a health screening inside a border facility, but no wider shots to show conditions or sleeping arrangements.
At the height of the Trump administration’s child separation policy in June 2018, it allowed media to tour facilities where separated children were held.
The new restrictions have been passed down verbally, not through an official memo, the officials said. The unofficial policy has led some agents at the border to release videos that show mass arrests and surges of migrants without permission from Washington, two officials said.
Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security have not offered any media tours of the newly opened processing facility in Donna, Texas, which is reported to be over capacity with unaccompanied migrant children, a DHS official said.