Twitter CEO Elon Musk criticized the lack of media coverage on the border crisis in response to footage of an overcrowded processing center posted to the platform Sunday.
Musk responded to a clip of the Border Patrol Central Processing Center in El Paso, Texas. Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales filmed the footage, which showed migrants lying on the floor wrapped in what appeared to be tin foil. Fox News’ national correspondent Bill Melugin later shared the footage with the caption, “Congressman Gonzales says he took the video on Friday, when 4,600 migrants were in federal custody. Capacity is only 1,040.”
“Why do so few report about millions of people crossing the border?” Musk replied to the clip.
Why do so few report about millions of people crossing the border?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022
Border Patrol agents have grown increasingly overwhelmed by the mass influx of migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022. Migrant encounter numbers exceeded 2.3 million in fiscal year (FY) 2022, and reached record-high levels at the start of FY 2023, which began in October 2022. (RELATED: MSNBC’s Willie Geist Blasts Biden’s Media Blackout At The Border: ‘If It Had Been The Trump Administration We Would Be Rightly Outraged’)
Border communities are feeling the strain on key resources to assist the migrants being released into the U.S. by overwhelmed officials, such as medical care. In Eagle Pass, Texas, officials are running out of spaces to bury unidentified migrants who passed away on the dangerous journey into the country. Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber told Daily Caller field reporter Jorge Ventura many migrants die from dehydration and drowning in the strong currents of the Rio Grande River.
Members of President Joe Biden’s administration have said the border is “secure” despite the rise in migration, deaths and overwhelmed processing centers. Vice President Kamala Harris made the claim in a Sept. 11 interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd, and pointed fingers at former President Donald Trump’s administration for the “broken immigration system.”
Biden told reporters Dec. 6 he did not plan to visit the border during a trip to Arizona because “there are more important things going on,” when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed him on the matter at the White House.
“Because there are more important things going on. They’re going to invest billions of dollars in the new enterprise in the state,” the president said, speaking about a Taiwanese investment into chips manufacturing in Phoenix.