The left controls almost all legacy media. Newspapers and TV newsrooms have almost universally categorized ICE sweeps as “immigration” raids. They are not. ICE is detaining and arresting illegal aliens (illegal aliens is the legal, codified term), and often the raids result in arrests of felon illegal aliens. “Immigrants” should be reserved for foreigners who have gone through the legal process, not the millions of illegals who flooded over the border.
After ICE served a search warrant on the pot grower, Green House Farms, a bunch of illegal aliens ran from ICE because... they are illegal aliens. A lot of those illegal aliens were arrested, and according to DHS, four of them had felony convictions. A Mexican man was convicted of kidnapping, attempted rape and attempted child molestation and was previously deported in 2006. Another Mexican man was convicted of rape and a DUI. An El Salvadorian man was convicted of hit and run and DUI. The lone woman (she’s a Mexican) with convictions is a serial burglar and has a DUI. How did the local paper frame it? Here's an example:
A man originally from Mexico had been convicted of kidnapping, attempted rape and attempted child molestation and was previously deported in 2006, according to DHS. While his convictions could be anywhere, searches of the man’s name in Ventura County and Santa Barbara superior court records did not result in any matches.
All three were “originally from” - the author wouldn’t call them either Mexican or El Salvadorian, or illegal aliens. They were immigrants. The reporter, named Makena Huey, framed it as “just” one percent were felons, and gosh, she couldn’t independently confirm those convictions. Is it worth it when you grab only four “alleged” felons? Alleged because she couldn’t confirm the convictions.
The three men and one woman, included in the agency’s news release, account for about 1% of workers swept up in the raids at both sites. The Star could not independently verify the convictions of the four named.
Makena could have "confirmed" the convictions with a phone call to the U.S. Attorney’s office and a LexisNexis search. But that would require actual work, and it would bust her “I’m not sure the DOJ is telling the truth” narrative.
READ MORE: Oops: Gavin Newsom's 'Strawberry Farmer' Turns Out to Be a Child Predator
Also in the article, Makena wrote:
A farmworker also died July 12 as a result of injuries suffered during the raid two days earlier. His niece Yesenia Duran said in a post on online fundraising site GoFundMe that he had been hard working and an innocent farmer.
What Makena conveniently left out is that Duran’s uncle (according to Duran) was sending all his wages to his wife and daughter in Mexico; he had called his wife in Mexico to tell her he was hiding from ICE. And, he had worked for Green House for 10 years.
In other twisted narratives, ABC News spent 90 percent of its article repeating an “ICE is mean” narrative:
According to witnesses, [Jonathan] Caravello was attempting to dislodge a tear gas canister that was stuck underneath someone's wheelchair. However, in a statement posted on X, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Caravello was arrested for throwing a tear gas canister at law enforcement.
That story posted on Monday. The reason I point out the timing is that the Information was available to read. DOJ notes that there is bodycam video of Caravello kicking the canister and then throwing it. He then leaves, comes back dressed in different clothes, and then is arrested. Including that information would bust the "witness" narrative. I've watched the video. None of it showed a stuck canister of tear gas under a wheelchair.
And then, there’s the teacher's union that Caravello is part of. It wrote:
The California Faculty Association (CFA) is celebrating the release of Jonathan A. Caravello, Ph.D., a CFA member and respected educator and activist at California State University Channel Islands, after they were abducted by federal authorities on Thursday, July 10 in Camarillo while exercising their constitutional right to protest peacefully.
A judge this afternoon ordered the release of Dr. Caravello from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center.
“Professor Caravello’s freedom is the result of collective action. Faculty, students, labor unions, and immigrant rights advocates across the country stood together to demand justice, and today we see the power of solidarity”
Apparently, Caravello is “nonbinary” because “they/them” were the pronouns used by CFA throughout the statement. And, factually, Caravello wasn’t released because of “collective action." That’s nonsense. He posted bail. The Daily Mail's coverage was far more honest. It had a photo of Caravello agitating while wearing culottes and wrote that Caravello was arrested for throwing a tear gas canister.
The Camarillo raid illustrates how the media will continue to foment violence against ICE agents because their readers/watchers are consistently being told innocent immigrant farmers are being abducted and “disappeared,” and the violence against ICE is somehow justified.
The administration needs to provide a daily briefing like it did during COVID to set the record straight and call out the lies. Post photos of arrested felons and remind America why raids like the one in Camarillo were conducted. Although the narrative was of children of “innocent” migrants who were just picking strawberries and "disappeared"; that was always a lie. This was a warranted (signed by a federal judge) sweep at a pot farm (still a federal crime), and it was apparently employing illegal aliens and children. Although children can work on farms, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to work at marijuana farms. No news reports have reported the latter.
It might "hurt" - but tell the truth, media.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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