The press uses many known tactics to frame narratives, one of which involves the stories they choose to cover or decide not to cover. At ProPublica, we have been delivered a variation on this technique, one that involves timing. The outlet provides a compelling and exhaustive exploration of the ICE deportation flights, but there is one issue concerning the born-on date of their story.

Not much is known about what is involved with and what transpires within these flights of illegal immigrants to foreign countries, but ProPublica has come up with a bit of unique sourcing to learn about the particulars. The outlet conducted interviews with a number of flight attendants from one charter airline company used for these repatriation missions. There is much drama and dark import woven throughout their accounts.

The piece opens with a harrowing tale of a child experiencing medical distress on a flight and so it had to be rerouted to get her medical attention. Other accounts involve a plane filled with prisoners in chains and how the standard job missions are altered for these flights. One issue they cite is that they are unprepared for emergency scenarios. 

But the overall narrative is that these people are treated in a less than dignified fashion:

The flight attendants were most concerned about their inability to treat their passengers humanely — and to keep them safe. They worried about what would happen in an emergency. Could they really get over a hundred chained passengers off the plane in time? “They never taught us anything regarding the immigration flights,” one said. “They didn’t tell us these people were going to be shackled, wrists to f***ing ankles.” “We have never gotten a clear answer on what we do in an ICE Air evacuation,” another said. “They will not give us an answer.”

Sounds dastardly, cruel, and unethical, and possibly immoral! Their jobs entailed little more than securing the plane to be ready for the flights, and then they were instructed to have no interactions with the passengers. No food service, no conversations, and they were forbidden to sit near them. Guards and handlers will do everything else, and those ICE employees do not have to follow flight protocols because instructing them to do so could lead to a reprimand from the company. My, this administration sure seems like a callous and crude operation.

One problem. In all of the grave reporting there is blithe mention of when this information was obtained. While President Trump is name-dropped and the controversies of these current flights are certainly detailed, these employee testimonials were arranged and recorded… prior to Trump taking office.

THREAD: Last year, ProPublica started receiving tips from an unusual kind of source: flight attendants.

They said they'd worked on deportation flights for ICE, and they could tell us what it was really like on board. 1/

— ProPublica (@propublica) April 3, 2025

We are never given a more specific time frame for these interviews, but even if they had been conducted after the November presidential election, the events described by these flight attendants would involve flights and actions taken by ICE during the Biden administration. And yet, even as President Trump is cited, neither Joe Biden’s name nor any direct reference to his administration appears anywhere in this very lengthy report.

There are plenty of details throughout that indicate the procedures predate the current administration. An email from an employee complaining about these flights was delivered last year. The company they worked for - GlobalX - made reference to these ICE flights and what the employees do on them during an earnings phone report in 2023. In another section a quote from an ICE official regarding some of their protocols is from 2021. There is in reference to the controversial use of a particular restraint during flights, seen in a DHS report – that is from 2024, regarding the use in the previous year.

Yet despite the timing of these interviews ProPublica never managed to issue this report until now? Even if there is some form of explanation made regarding the timing of publication, how do you speak to these employees in 2024 regarding what they experienced on flights that year and those prior and never managed to reference these were practices and policies made during the Biden administration? 

This entire presentation is about using prior examples to demean what is taking place under the new leadership. Nowhere in this report is there a cited detail about what the current ICE flights are engaged in. It is a sham that all the objectionable actions are offloaded onto the current administration.

This displays a well-worn media tactic. Let us harken back to the “kids in cages” canard, or the claim during his first term that Trump had created “baby jails” for immigrant infants. These were charges of inhuman administration tactics that were in fact in practice from the Obama years. Now it is the unacceptable protocols on ICE flights during the Biden years – and we are to believe they are all President Trump’s fault.

Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie.  

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