Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

On August 29, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is rejecting the passport applications of some American-born citizens living along the U.S. southern border and casting doubt on their citizenship. Fox & Friends, unsurprisingly, failed to cover the story.     

According to the Post’s Kevin Sieff, the number of passport denials and revocations has increased under President Donald Trump as the administration accuses “hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates.” Some American citizens, whose American birth certificates have been deemed suspect by the administration, are being held captive in detention centers and even targeted for deportation. Almost all of those affected by the administration’s latest draconian policy are Hispanic. According to a Media Matters review, Fox & Friends did not once mention the Post article, even while news of the administration’s newest assault on Hispanic Americans received a lot of attention by news organizations, as well as on social media. CNN's morning show New Day also failed to mention the story, though the channel's early morning program, Early Start and CNN Newsroom both discussed the report. Fox & Friends' failure to cover the report is particularly alarming given the way the show has hyped Trump's draconian immigration agenda in the past.

This latest devastating and racist attack on the rights of American citizens follows a summer of horrifying abuses at the hands of the Trump administration, which has adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy on immigrants who cross the border “illegally.” The Trump administration has forcibly separated immigrant families, bankrolled child prisons, and deported parents while holding their children captive. Fox News has responded apathetically to the administration’s endless cruelties, oscillating between ignoring them and defending the actions and their impact on immigrants. So, it should come as no surprise that Fox & Friends chose to ignore the administration's seizure of Americans’ passports. It’s just another example of the hosts’ willingness to bury their heads in the sand and ignore any scandal or cruelty of the Trump administration.