Breitbart reporter wants Trump and other conservatives to calm down about the migrant 'caravan'

Last Thursday, BuzzFeed News national security correspondent Adolfo Flores published a report on "a huge caravan of Central Americans" headed toward the U.S. that "no one in Mexico dares to stop." If you read down far enough, you'd see that not everyone in the caravan is "planning on crossing into the United States undetected," and some "are hoping to get their families to other parts of Mexico." The same day, Breitbart News posted a less sensationalized report on the same group of migrants and asylum-seekers, written by Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby, the head of Breitbart Texas.

The story of the "vast horde of migrants" made its "dark turn through the conservative news media" to Fox & Friends and President Trump's Twitter feed, The New York Times reports. On Wednesday night, Trump signed a hastily compiled memo directing the National Guard to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, apparently spooked by "the big Caravan of People from Honduras."

"The coverage became so distorted that it prompted a reporter for Breitbart News," Darby, "to push back," Jeremy Peters writes at the Times.

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Darby — who runs Breitbart's Texas bureau like a quasi-independent fiefdom and tends to shoot straight on border issues — told Peters that caravans are pretty common ways for migrants to travel through Mexico, for safety and strength. "The caravan isn't something that's a unique event," Darby said. "And I think people are looking at it wrong. If you're upset at the situation, it's easier to be mad at the migrant than it is to be mad at the political leaders on both sides who won't change the laws."

You can read more about the politicization of the caravan at The New York Times.