The press are broadly beholden to journalistic standards that require multiple sources to corroborate something as fact before publishing it. Us regular jack offs have no such limitations.

As to why people are speculating that he’s dead? For one, the place does appear to be a literal death camp. Also, officials in the Administration have admitted he was deported “in error” (though there have been conflicting statements over this and at least one firing). Since any sane person would want to fix a mistake of this magnitude, you could see why them refusing to might make people wonder.