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As I wrote in my previous post, part of the reason why the U.S. is in for a rude awakening when it comes to the immigration crisis is because the mainstream media continues to provide cover to illegal immigrants and their enablers.
Less than a full week later, they did it again. This time it involves the unfolding case of 22-year-old Laken Hope Riley, a student at the University of Georgia who was found dead on Thursday. The cause of death has been determined to be blunt force trauma.
José Antonio Ibarra is the suspect in Riley’s killing. Originally from Venezuela, NewNation reporter Ali Bradley reported Ibarra had illegally crossed into El Paso, Texas in September of 2022 but was released into the country due to lack of detention space. Ibarra was arrested 5 months ago in Queens, New York City for injury to a child less than 17 years old and not having a license.
Diego Ibarra, a brother of the murder suspect, has also been arrested and charged with green card fraud.
According to UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark, Ibarra is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, and concealing the death of another.
There are plenty of headline choices to convey to readers how the border crisis resulted in another death of a U.S. citizen. I was able to do it with this story while talking about a different, yet related topic.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided to not do that. The paper instead went with the much-sanitized, “UGA murder suspect didn’t know victim, killing was ‘crime of opportunity,’ cops say.”
On social media, where there is room to provide even more context, the AJC again opted to not provide the relevant information:
CNN also joined in on the trend. Their headline?
“Suspect in death of Augusta University student found on UGA campus taken into custody.”
His illegal status in the country is barely mentioned in the story and it is done in the most passive way possible, with no mention to the now-known facts of how he got into the country:
“The suspect does not have an ‘extensive’ criminal history, according to Clark. Ibarra is a resident of Athens, but not a US citizen or a student at UGA, [Clark] added.”
In a decision that appears to have had zero thought into it, Axios reposted their story from October 2023 about the “myth” of an open southern border shortly after the news of how Ibarra was allowed into the country because of our very real open border.
What is funny about Axios’ decision to repost an old, debunked story from last year is how it undercuts the recent shift from Democrats and media, who stopped downplaying the border crisis and demanded House Republicans pass a horrible border bill because of the long-existing emergency.
The reality is stories like Riley’s have become much more common since the start of the border crisis in 2021. The trend will not end anytime soon, nor will the trend of the mainstream media following their biased framing.