Flash Back: This Month in Biden’s Open Border Crisis -- El Paso 2023
Analysis Summary
The article describes crowded and difficult conditions in El Paso in 2023, where many migrants released by Border Patrol while awaiting asylum hearings stayed on city streets, often without shelter, money, or hygiene access. It blames the Biden administration for the situation, portraying the release of migrants as a policy failure that overwhelmed the city, while not explaining the legal requirements for processing asylum seekers or the constraints of the immigration system.
FATE Analysis
Four dimensions of psychological manipulation: how content captures Focus, exploits Authority, triggers Tribal identity, and engineers Emotion.
Focus signals
"to view a crisis that saw hundreds of illegal aliens released daily by the Biden Administration camping on city streets in the historic downtown area."
The article frames the situation in El Paso as a large-scale 'crisis' with the term 'hundreds...released daily,' which emphasizes scale and urgency, creating a sense of an unfolding emergency, even if individual events are not anomalous. This language captures attention by implying a breakdown in control.
"more than 100,000 illegal aliens were apprehended by the Border Patrol after entering the city from Mexico, and most were released onto the streets to pursue asylum claims."
The use of a large, round, cumulative number ('more than 100,000') over a broad timeframe is designed to convey overwhelming scale and chaos, drawing attention through statistical impression rather than granular context, enhancing the perception of crisis.
Authority signals
"The Mayor of the City of El Paso issued a Declaration of Disaster and a State of Emergency in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the influx of illegal aliens living on the city streets at the time."
The invocation of an official declaration (Disaster and State of Emergency) by a local authority lends legitimacy to the framing of a crisis. However, this is standard sourcing when reporting on municipal actions, so the authority appeal remains within journalistic norms and does not strongly substitute credentials for argument.
"Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations..."
The author bio leverages law enforcement credentials to enhance the perceived credibility of the reporting, especially since the photos are credited to him. While this contextualizes sourcing, it indirectly positions the narrative as authoritative, particularly given the outlet’s choice to highlight his rank and tenure.
Tribe signals
"hundreds of illegal aliens released daily by the Biden Administration"
The phrase 'illegal aliens released by the Biden Administration' constructs a clear political and identity divide: migrants are positioned as an external group being 'released' by a Democratic-led federal authority, implicating the administration as enabling a burden on a local community. This creates a 'them' (outsiders + liberal elites) versus 'us' (local residents, law enforcement, taxpayers).
"The elimination of widescale catch and release policies, enhanced border prosecutions, and the elimination of parole programs and land border ports had brought the number of illegal border crossings down by more than 90 percent."
The contrast between Biden-era policies (implied as permissive and chaotic) and Trump-era actions (implied as effective and orderly) frames border policy as a tribal marker: supporting strict enforcement becomes a sign of correct political alignment, while opposing it risks tribal outcasting.
"DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a statement...in his usual dismissive tone, declaring that the border was not open."
The characterization of Mayorkas’s statement as delivered in a 'dismissive tone' suggests administration officials are out of touch or deceitful, promoting a consensus narrative among the 'informed' (implied readers) that the administration is lying, reinforcing the reader's alignment with the article's perspective.
Emotion signals
"the thousands released by the Biden administration to pursue asylum claims erected makeshift structures on the downtown streets and alleyways around the Sacred Heart Church in El Paso."
The image of migrants occupying religious-adjacent urban space evokes a sense of sacrilege and disorder, amplifying emotional resonance. The framing emphasizes illegality and degradation, provoking moral and civic outrage rather than humanitarian concern.
"the city struggled to financially deal with the thousands of released aliens who often spent more than a week on the city streets attempting to find transportation to parts further inside the United States."
The mention of financial strain on the city conjures fear of resource depletion and uncontrolled burden on taxpayers, linking migration to economic insecurity without offering proportionate data on overall fiscal impact.
"Many sought shade as afternoon temperatures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit...unable to bathe for days, searching for relief from the heat on the city’s sidewalks..."
The article describes human suffering (heat, lack of hygiene), which could evoke empathy, but does so in the context of legitimizing a crisis narrative rather than advocacy for humane treatment. This creates a spike of discomfort without redemption, potentially deepening resentment rather than compassion—emotional manipulation via imbalance.
Narrative Analysis (PCP)
How the article reshapes thinking: Perception (what beliefs are targeted), Context (what information is shifted or omitted), and Permission (what behavior is being encouraged).
The article is designed to produce the belief that the Biden administration is responsible for a severe and mismanaged immigration crisis in El Paso, characterized by urban chaos, squalid living conditions, and unsustainable burdens on local resources. It frames the release of migrants as an avoidable policy failure directly attributable to administrative decisions, rather than complex humanitarian or systemic challenges.
By repeatedly attributing the situation in El Paso to 'Biden administration' policies and emphasizing visual depictions of overcrowding and distress, the article makes it feel natural to interpret migration flows as a consequence of political weakness or deliberate inaction, rather than outcomes of broader geopolitical forces or established legal processes like asylum claims.
The article omits any mention of the legal right to claim asylum under U.S. and international law, which necessitates the release of individuals from custody while claims are processed. It also omits the context that Title 42 expulsions (used to rapidly remove migrants during the pandemic) were widely criticized by human rights organizations as inhumane and legally dubious, and that the Biden administration inherited an overburdened immigration system with systemic backlogs that constrain processing capacity.
The reader is nudged toward viewing restrictive immigration policies—such as mass expulsions, criminal prosecution of migrants, and elimination of parole programs—as necessary and effective solutions. It implicitly validates skepticism or hostility toward asylum seekers by associating them with urban blight and public burden.
SMRP Pattern
Four manipulation maintenance tactics: Socializing the idea as normal, Minimizing concerns, Rationalizing with logic, and Projecting blame.
"The repeated depiction of migrants camping in city streets, panhandling, and relying on charity serves to normalize the perception that such conditions are intrinsic to migration itself, rather than a consequence of policy choices about processing and detention."
""DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a statement on conditions at the border, in his usual dismissive tone, declaring that the border was not open." — This frames Mayorkas’s statement not as policy communication but as evasion, shifting responsibility for the crisis from structural factors to personal demeanor and administrative denial."
Red Flags
High-severity indicators: silencing dissent, coordinated messaging, or weaponizing identity to shut down debate.
""The Secretary was referring to the deadline for the expiration of the Title 42 Emergency COVID-19 expulsion authority." — This paraphrase follows a talking point structure commonly used in political messaging to discredit administrative justifications, and the characterization of Mayorkas’s tone as 'dismissive' is evaluative and performative, not neutral reporting."
"The conflation of 'illegal aliens' with urban crisis and burden frames opposition to Biden’s policies as a litmus test for concern about public order and national sovereignty. Readers are subtly encouraged to associate belief in strict border enforcement with rationality and civic responsibility."
Techniques Found(7)
Specific propaganda techniques identified using the SemEval-2023 academic taxonomy of 23 techniques across 6 categories.
"hundreds of illegal aliens released daily by the Biden Administration"
Uses emotionally charged and dehumanizing term 'illegal aliens' repeatedly to frame migrants negatively; the phrase 'released by the Biden Administration' implies intentional policy-driven abandonment rather than standard legal processing, adding a manipulative tone disproportionate to neutral reporting.
"the thousands released by the Biden administration to pursue asylum claims erected makeshift structures on the downtown streets"
Describing shelters as 'makeshift structures' carries a negative connotation implying disorder and squalor, subtly framing the migrants' survival efforts as blight rather than necessity, thus shaping perception through emotionally charged wording.
"the humanitarian crisis caused by the influx of illegal aliens living on the city streets"
Frames the presence of migrants as the cause of a 'humanitarian crisis' when they are typically the ones in need of aid; reverses victimhood, invoking fear and resentment by suggesting the vulnerable are themselves a threat to public order.
"in his usual dismissive tone"
Characterizes Secretary Mayorkas's statement not through evidence but through emotionally loaded attribution ('dismissive tone'), implying arrogance or indifference without engaging his actual argument, thus manipulating reader perception of motive.
"By May 2025, just four months after President Trump took office, Border Patrol apprehensions in the El Paso Sector had dropped to 2,101 from 26,172 in May 2023."
Implies a direct causal link between Trump taking office and a 90% drop in apprehensions without presenting evidence for policy changes within four months; the timeline is implausibly short for such a drastic shift, thus exaggerating the effectiveness of hypothetical actions.
"smuggler’s propaganda is false"
By attributing opposing views to smugglers—widely perceived as criminals—the administration's critics are framed as aligned with illicit actors, thereby discrediting legitimate debate through association with a universally condemned group.
"the Biden Administration"
Repeatedly singles out the Biden Administration in a context of crisis and failure, using the label not neutrally but to assign blame and moral judgment, functioning as a rhetorical device to delegitimize policy through personalization.