FAKE NEWS: Two VERY Different Accounts Of Those Rio Grande Border Drownings

There’s a scripture verse in Proverbs 18:7 about one side in a conflict seeming right — until the other party makes his case. Too often, that describes how we need to suspend belief as we consume our news.

If you relied on the earliest reports from the news wires, you would have read the story about three people drowning in the Rio Grande as proof positive that Abbott is an inhuman monster with blood on his hands.

If you paused and reflected on the fact that that these stories just happened to describe the very same stretch of river happened to be at the center of a major standoff between Biden’s Border Patrol and Abbott’s National guard over control of a favored cartel mass-immigration crossing point, you might wonder whether this story seemed to fit a prescribed narrative just a little TOO neatly.

Like us, you might have withheld judgment until you had a more complete picture of the events.

A day later, two VERY different accounts of those tragic drownings have taken shape. We leave our readers to decide which is the more credible.

The first accounts, as reported by any number of other outlets framed Texas as directly responsible for the deaths of three innocents.

Here is the Houston Chronicle’s early version… before it added updates that greatly softened the criticism of Texan culpability.

Three migrants — a woman and two children — drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass on Friday night after Texas National Guard soldiers blocked Border Patrol agents from reaching them, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Saturday.

State officials had seized a 2½-mile stretch of the border earlier this week, an unprecedented state takeover that the Justice Department says prevents Border Patrol agents from reaching even migrants in need of emergency assistance.

Cuellar said the Border Patrol learned Friday night of a group of six migrants in distress as they were trying to cross the Rio Grande near the area. The Border Patrol attempted to contact Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety officials to alert them by phone but were unable to reach them. The Border Patrol then alerted soldiers at the entrance of a public park that the state had fenced off and prevented federal authorities from entering.

“The Texas Military Department and the Texas National Guard did not grant access to Border Patrol agents to save the migrants,” Cuellar wrote on social media. “This is a tragedy and the state bears responsibility.” — Houston Chronicle

Updated versions include State pushback against any suggestion of wrongdoing on Texas’ part.

Texas officials called accusations they’d allowed three migrants to drown by denying border agents access to a riverside park “wholly inaccurate.”

The Texas military insisted they had searched the Rio Grande and the deaths had already occurred by the time federal officers arrived.

“At the time that Border Patrol requested access, the drownings had occurred, Mexican Authorities were recovering the bodies, and Border Patrol expressed these facts to the TMD personnel on site,” Texas Military Department said in a statement Sunday.
[…] TMD say they were made aware of a “migrant distress situation” by CBP around 9 p.m. on Jan. 12 and began searching the river. Around 45 minutes later they say Mexican authorities were seen responding to an incident on their bank of the river.

“At no time did TMD security personnel along the river observe any distressed migrants, nor did TMD turn back any illegal immigrants from the US during this period,” the department clarified. — NYPost

Updated versions of the AP story give these additional details:

Homeland Security echoed Cuellar’s account of the distress call. In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday, Texas acknowledged seizing the city park on the border but said the federal government had mischaracterized its actions and it was trying to resolve any disputes over access.
[…] Abbott’s office referred questions about the drownings to the Texas Military Department, which said its security personnel saw Mexican authorities responding to an incident across the river about 45 minutes after Border Patrol made the state aware of the situation. The department said it maintains water rescue equipment and works with local paramedics to assist migrants needing medical care.
[…] In its Supreme Court filing, Texas challenged claims that Border Patrol agents were denied access. They said the Border Patrol has scaled down its presence since summer, when the state moved its resources and manpower to the park. — AP

Senator Ted Cruz has often clashed with Mayorkas over border security, especially the surging number of fatalities accrued by people who did not survive the illegal crossing during the Biden administration.

Until now, when those deaths could be used as a wedge issue to pressure Texas to make the border even MORE porous, those fatalities have not become part of the national conversation about border security… despite the Right’s desire to bring attention to the issue.

A cynic might ask what makes these deaths suddenly more relevant than the hundreds that came before. But perhaps the answer to that question could be found in the preceding paragraph.

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