A couple of weeks ago, I brought a big story about immigration into the national spotlight-my article for Breitbart News entitled Sudden Flood Of Asylum Rquests At The U.S. / Mexican Border
was the featured story on the Drudge Report all day and then swept through the internet. A number of other people picked up and did great pieces and I did follow up as well. Politicians like Sen Jeff Sessions and Rep. Bob Goodlatte have taken note of the exploding asylum requests as well.
This has not gone unnoticed by the Obama administration, who clearly has a penchant for press intimidation. I have three stories; two personal and one from another source and frankly, they should scare the hell out of you if you believe in a free press.
1) I contacted the Department of Justice immigration office in Virginia about ten days ago to see if they had a statistic I couldn’t find on their site. I gave name and said I was with Breitbart News and was transferred to their media contact quickly.
The first thing she said was. “Oh, it’s funny you called. I was just checking the statistics in your new article.”
I thought it might be a joke, so I said “Well, how am I doing?”
It was no joke. We discussed the numbers in my article. (I had one wrong-incorrect year-but the real number made my case stronger.)
Someone in the Department of Justice was having their media person check my articles for ‘accuracy’ two days after the story broke nationally.
2) A couple of days later, I was in San Diego. I wanted to see the Otay border crossing for myself. I contacted the local San Diego office for this routine press request; I wasn’t requesting an interview or anything special. I just wanted to see the crossing and get a feel what it was like.
The local office didn’t return my first call, so I phoned back and they call me about five minutes later. Again, I’d said who I was and what I was calling about.
I was told that my request would have to be approved by the Department of Homeland Security. I took down the information they have me and then asked if this was normal that just seeing the border crossing required approval from the DHS.
The woman from the San Diego paused, then said, “THIS request request requires approval from the Department of Homeland Security. ”
I emailed and phoned the DHS. Over a week later and I have not heard back.
3) An ABC TV Station in San Diego did a story a couple of weeks ago on the boom in asylum requests. The following is a postscript they added to the story and given my personal experiences on this, I find it chilling (emphasis added):
UPDATE: When Team 10 broke the story on the “leaks” at the international border, it started an effort to locate who is talking to us — this is a normal reaction by a federal agency.
These sources tell Team10 that Customs and Border Patrol management is looking “very hard” to find who is providing us information about the loophole.
This appears to go beyond the usual response to a news story involving the agency.
As described to us, the search is “very intense” and it’s not limited to only the San Diego region.
The policy of Team 10 is to protect our sources. As more develops on this story, we will report it.
This is frightening. But it indicates you’re on the right track, and the administration doesn’t want even more public support AGAINST amnesty. We also want to know who is telling immigrants the “right” words to say.