From Concentration Camps to Overflow Facilities: With Biden in Charge, Media
Forgets Kids in Cages
The lack of critical coverage of Biden's new announcement suggests that
corporate media will no longer be as concerned about "kids in cages" now
their preferred candidate is in the White House.
by Alan Macleod
February 09th, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
The Biden administration is opening a new child prison along the United
States-Mexico border. The center, located in Carrizo Springs, around 100
miles southwest of San Antonio, is being specifically built for
unaccompanied migrant children attempting to cross the border and will hold
around 700 people when finished, although plans noted it will be expanded if
the government deems it necessary.
But corporate media do not see it that way. While the Trump years were
filled with stories about "kids in cages" and ICE "concentration camps"
along the border, they have instead almost universally referred to the new
project as an "overflow facility" to help migrant children, as the following
headlines demonstrate:
Media Bias
CNN and others are now using the term "overflow facility" to describe
migrant detention centers
"Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant
children," CNN,
"Biden administration to open overflow facility for 700 migrant children,"
New York Post,
"Biden administration to house migrant teens at overflow facility in Texas
closed under Trump," USA Today,
"Biden Admin. to Open Migrant Overflow Facility amid Increase in
Unaccompanied Minor Apprehensions," Yahoo! News,
"Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant
children," CBS.
"Overflow facility" is a distinctly pleasantly sounding term for such an
establishment, suggesting links to positively-charged services like swimming
pools or libraries. The phrase is a completely new way to refer to prisons;
a news search for "overflow facility" pre-January 2021 brings up only
stories about COVID overflow clinics or emergency sewage treatment works.
The phrase "concentration camp" to describe the structure was completely
absent. Searching for "Biden concentration camp" into news databases is more
likely to generate stories about the plight of Uyghurs in Western China
rather than domestic affairs.
Perhaps the worst offender, however, was Fox News, whose headline informed
readers: "Biden administration to open overflow shelter for migrant children
in Texas" - a framing that invites the audience to see the move as a
humanitarian gesture, along the lines of rape crisis shelters. None of the
children who will be sent there will go of their own free will and it is
doubtful whether many will appreciate the "shelter" that the U.S. government
will provide them.
Over much of the past three years, corporate media have been comparing the
detention centers on the border to concentration camps, if not directly
labeling them as such (e.g. CNN, Esquire, Washington Post). Data from Google
Trends shows that phrases like "ICE concentration camp" were barely used
until 2018, the term exploding into public consciousness a year later,
especially after prominent Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began
using it.
President Biden has promised to rein in many of the worst excesses of ICE
policy, yet the organization's role in society will not fundamentally
change. Indeed, during the time he was vice-president (2009-2017), President
Obama deported well over 2.5 million people through immigration orders, more
than any other president in American history, earning him the moniker
"Deporter-in-Chief" from critics.
President Trump actually deported fewer migrants than Obama, although he
drastically sharpened his rhetoric against them and encouraged ICE to carry
out a campaign of intimidation against the population nationwide and
attempting to prosecute activists who helped migrants survive the perilous
desert crossing. And while Trump politicized and made the border wall a
central part of his administration, hundreds of miles of the wall had
already been built by previous presidents, as filmmaker Abby Martin
documented.
Missing from so much of the coverage, whether pro or anti-border wall,
however, is the context to why so many people are leaving Central America to
go northwards in the first place. When corporate media do offer
explanations, they have been relatively shallow, merely noting that they are
searching for employment, fleeing discrimination, or following a dream. In
reality, economic and political factors largely account for the enormous
migration - many of which have their origins in decisions taken in
Washington, D.C.
Free trade deals signed with developing countries, such as NAFTA, decimated
local agriculture, as small scale farmers suddenly had to compete with
massive, U.S. government-subsidized agribusiness, leading to a collapse in
the Mexican rural economy and a huge influx of people into the country's
largest cities.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration's decision to overthrow the government
of Honduras in 2009 led to a military dictatorship, persecution on a
national scale, and a mass exodus from the country. In neighboring
Nicaragua, by comparison, the U.S. has tried - but failed - to remove the
Sandinista government. As a result, emigration from Nicaragua has been
minimal.
The lack of critical coverage of Biden's new announcement suggests that
corporate media will no longer be as concerned about "kids in cages" now
their preferred candidate is in the White House. Perhaps they never cared at
all.
Feature photo | An injured women, part of a