Topic: WorldNetDaily
Like a good, loyal pro-Trump apparatchik (as well as a longtime immigrant-hater), WorldNetDaily is doing what it can to fearmonger about the migrant caravan coming up Central America to seek asylum in the U.S.
On Oct. 18, WND uncritically repeated claims by the right-wing, pro-Trump legal group Judicial Watch that "Some 100 ISIS terrorists have been caught in Guatemala, where a caravan of thousands of migrants is headed to the United States" and that a terrorist “could have easily slipped in considering the minors, coined Unaccompanied Alien Children, were not properly vetted and some turned out to be violent gangbangers who went on to commit heinous crimes in their adopted land of opportunity.”
In fact, the Guatemalan newspaper that originally reported the claim about the ISIS arrests did not specify a time frame in which those arrests took place , and no evidence was provided to support the implication that ISIS terrorists were, in fact, part of the caravan.
Art Moore offered more uncritical stenography in an Oct. 23 article stating that "The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday it can confirm that gang members and males from the Middle East and Asia are in the caravan headed for the United States that began in Honduras." Moore cited only a tweet from a DHS official and offered no evidence to prove the claim. Meanwhile, an actual news outlet is embedded with the caravan and has not seen any Middle Easterners, and it reported taht another DHS official said the other official's tweet referencing Middle Easterners did not refer to the caravan specifically.
Despite Judicial Watch's dubious grasp of the facts, WND fearmongered again on Oct. 26 by uncritically repeating the group's unsutstantiated claim that "A number of human smugglers operating inside the caravan moving from Central America through Mexico toward the United States’ southern border have been arrested, and seven unaccompanied minor children have been rescued." Judicial Watch vaguely cited "exclusive information and photos from Guatemalan authorities" but WND mentioned no physical substantiation of the claims.
WND gave up on fact-checking completely for pure speculation in an anonymously written Oct. 29 article headlined "Worst fears about migrant caravan ... likely true," in which even more dubious sources like Infowars and Gateway Pundit are cited to fearmonger further about the caravan.
Treating speculation as fact isn't going to help WND find the road to solvency.
