The tale so nice, they’ve told it twice.
The New York Times, CNN, Time magazine, the Daily Beast and even the Washington Examiner resurrected a misleading narrative this week alleging the Trump administration has “lost” hundreds of undocumented minors.
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The headlines include, “U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find,” “Trump administration unable to locate another 1,500 immigrant children released from custody,” and “The Trump Administration Has Lost Track of Nearly 1,500 Migrant Children.”
The thrust of these articles is simple: U.S. officials have no clue as to the whereabouts of roughly 1,500 undocumented minors. The Trump administration has allowed these vulnerable persons to slip through the cracks.
“The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters,” the Times reports, citing congressional findings.
It adds, “In findings that lawmakers described as troubling, Senate investigators said the department could not determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,488 out of 11,254 children the agency had placed with sponsors in 2018, based on follow-up calls from April 1 to June 30.”
The problem with these reports is that the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the source of the 1,500 figure, also accuses the press of mischaracterizing the facts of the matter.
The Times itself reports:
CNN also reported this week: “The lack of certainty about where the children are does not necessarily mean they are lost. It could be as simple as no one in the home picking up the phone when Health and Human Services called or not responding to a message.”
So, wait, because some program participants didn’t respond to DHS phone calls, we’re going to go with “U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children”? Yes, that’s what they went with.
This is almost as bad as when the newsrooms reported nearly the exact same thing in April. The difference this time around is that reporters are mostly avoiding the word “missing” to describe the minors whose sponsors, who may themselves be undocumented, failed to respond to follow-up phone calls.
The Times’ April report still includes a passage that reads [emphasis added]: “Steve Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agency’s Administration for Children and Families, disclosed during testimony before a Senate homeland security subcommittee that the agency had learned of the missing children after placing calls to the people who took responsibility for them when they were released from government custody.”
Wagner was none too pleased with how the paper characterized the situation.
“The sponsors may be undocumented themselves, they may change their phone number. The requirement is just a phone call — you don’t necessarily have to go (check on the child) physically, although some do,” he told CNN, which, funnily enough, was also skeptical of how the story was being reported.
Characterizing the minors as “lost” is tantamount to believing a friend has been kidnapped because he doesn’t answer a phone call, Wagner also told reporters at the time.
He wasn’t wrong.
That the so many newsrooms have gone back to this well, even after all of the legitimate criticism they earned for the way they handled this exact story in April, is baffling. Or maybe telling.
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This story has been updated.
