NY Times Turnabout: Covid ‘Receding,’ Everyone Vaxxed, So Throw the Borders Open!

In Saturday’s New York Times story, “Democrats Face Tough Questions as a Border Saga Enters a New Chapter,” Leah Askarinam interviewed Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael Shear, Times reporters who have been covering the immigration-troubled Biden Administration’s ditching of Title 42, a Trump policy that slowed the admission of migrants on the southern border on public health grounds, specifically COVID concerns.

The Biden administration continued the program, causing liberal immigration activists heartburn, but is now ending it, because apparently COVID is no longer a problem. Surprisingly, however, Times agrees, at least if it means allowing more migrants into the United States.

Shear, whose paper has been encouraging COVID doomsaying for over two years, had to abruptly downplay the virus in order to make the Trump plan seem unreasonable, “an excuse” to keep migrants out.

Earlier this month, the paper actually suggested loosening the restrictions for entry, even making Republican-sounding arguments to bolster its case:

The number of covid cases has fallen in the majority of the United States. Many restrictions have been removed by the C.D.C. There is a possibility that an Omicron subvariant called BA.2 will cause another spike in these areas over the coming months. But, there has been no evidence to show it to be more dangerous than the current outbreak. Vaccines remain effective against any ill effects.

Shear, a reporter, expressed his suspicion for Trump’s motivations on Saturday.

Many immigration advocates believed that there was a pandemic. However, Trump’s real motives for putting it in place were darker. They wanted to prevent the very migrants Trump has criticized from entering the country and use the public-health rule as an excuse.

Shear picked up the story later, during the Biden administration, where Trump’s dark plan to limit migrant entry was suddenly more palatable. Shear again went against all the grain. Times’ two-year COVID scare-quest, sounding like a “let her rip” Republican, downplaying the virus danger in order to make loosening restrictions on incoming migrants seem sensible.

Now, fast forward to the middle period. Biden was still in office, the pandemic was still rampant, and there was much more debate. A lot of people, including administration officials, took a second look at the Title 42 issue and said, “You know what, this isn’t crazy.” When you have the Delta variant and Omicron variant, it’s not crazy to think that you would have some restrictions keeping people out….

And now we’ve come full circle, to where the pandemic is maybe receding a bit and lots of people are vaccinated. People are asking again: How do you let people in from other places in the world but you keep the Title 42 rationale and say we’re not going to let in people who are crossing the border on foot?

Perhaps it is because of the requirement that Americans travel into the United States to get vaccinated.

The reporters at least recognized hypocrisy as soon as they saw it. Kanno Youngs said: 

….it is surprising given how blunt this policy was, especially after months of Democrats criticizing the Trump administration for embracing policies that subjected migrants to violence, assault and kidnappings south of the border.

Shear was right:

Until the country really grapples with all of this, it’s going to continue to be a mess at the border.