As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal law enforcement authorities continue to face a wave of threats and attacks, the corporate media has engaged in an outrageous campaign of lies and slander that is fueling the unrest.
The latest example of a mainstream outlet reporting unsubstantiated rumors as verified fact comes to us from NBC News, which claimed recently, without evidence, that immigration officers were holding a young girl with special needs hostage until her dad turned himself in for processing.
“ICE held 5-year-old autistic girl in Massachusetts to pressure father to surrender, family says,” an NBC story on September 23 read. The story alleged that law enforcement “surrounded” and “encircled” the girl, claims based entirely on video from Telemundo, which is owned by NBCUniversal.
“They took my daughter, she’s 5 years old. She [is on the] autism spectrum,” NBC reported her mom saying. The girl’s father claimed police “grabbed” the girl, and NBC reported that the goal was to “coax” him to leave the house.
Democrat Party leaders, including Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and progressive Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), rushed to condemn the incident, with Omar renewing her calls to abolish ICE altogether.
But as ICE later proved, the entire story was false – forcing NBC to make major changes to its initial story.
In reality, the supposedly upstanding father “ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house,” according to ICE. The dad also “fled from the car” (leaving his daughter in the vehicle), flipped off the police, and ran inside.
The law enforcement who “surrounded” the girl were local cops who were called on to keep her safe, given that her father had just abandoned her. Edward Mejia, the man arrested, has been breaking the country’s laws for more than 20 years and has a previous arrest for domestic abuse and strangulation.
Yet even though the facts directly disproved NBC’s reporting, the fake story had already taken on a life of its own as major news outlets, including The Daily Mail, rushed to publish their own unverified stories about the incident.
Other examples show how the media has been quick to publish every dubious sob story it can find about immigration enforcement actions.
In July, the media ran with a story that claimed ICE arrested an 82-year-old Chilean grandfather who came in for a green card appointment. According to the media narrative, the grandfather died in custody in Guatemala. At least that is the story Morning Call published, which formed the basis for numerous other articles, as noted by National Review.
But it was later revealed that no such man exists, and no arrest occurred. “This was a hoax peddled by the media who rushed to press without pausing to corroborate the facts with DHS. This was journalistic malpractice,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the press.
That same month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged a Mexican woman with staging her own “kidnapping” by federal agents “to generate public sympathy and solicit donations.”
Also over the summer, a man named Jossimar Cabrera claimed ICE deported his wife, then said she actually left him for another man.
Law enforcement is now investigating Cabrera after video emerged of him dragging a large bag before police found her body near a river. He has been charged with murder and arrested after fleeing to Peru.
The situation has gotten so bad that DHS put out an entire list in June of “numerous false and misleading stories that have been dumped by the media and on social media” that were spread just that month.
This list included false claims that ICE targets nannies in parks, that a six-year-old with leukemia had been arrested, and that the agency caused a pregnant woman to have a miscarriage.
While the media’s extreme gullibility is dishonest, it is also dangerous at a time when radical left-wing groups and individuals are looking for any excuse to assault immigration enforcement agents. In September, an anti-immigration enforcement extremist attacked a Dallas ICE field office. In a cruelly ironic twist, he killed one detainee and injured two others.
As The Federalist reported, the fake NBC News story “helped amplify anti-ICE sentiment… that fueled Wednesday’s shooting.” The Department of Homeland Security reports that there has been a “1,000 percent increase in assaults against [agents], including vehicles being used as weapons towards them, and doxing campaigns targeting federal officers and their families.”
The media has a responsibility to set aside its left-wing biases and report the news fairly and accurately. Americans want to know the truth about what is happening with immigration enforcement. But biased journalists are instead resorting to spreading fake news that fits with their own antipathy toward Trump and ICE instead of fulfilling their duty to investigate the facts and report only what is true.
Matt Lamb is a contributor for AMAC Newsline and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
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