Don’t Believe Media Lies – Americans Want Immigration Enforcement

Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration – delivering on one of voters’ top concerns in 2024 – elected Democrats and the corporate “news” media have attempted to portray the administration’s enforcement efforts as chaotic, brutal, and unpopular. But the sensationalist headlines intentionally misrepresent that immigration enforcement remains popular among the American people, even as a dishonest press invents one hoax after another to smear and defame Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

A year ago, an AP/NORC poll found the following:

The vast majority of adults favor deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally who have been convicted of a violent crime, including 65% who strongly favor the policy and 18% who somewhat favor it. There is also broad support among people across the political spectrum with majorities of Democrats (79%) and Republicans (89%) in support.

Twelve months on, the latest Harvard-Harris CAPS poll found that 80% of respondents want illegal aliens who commit crimes deported and 54% want all illegal aliens deported regardless of criminal activity. This finding should be headline news, but partisan newsrooms would rather you don’t hear about it.

The talking heads on CNN and MS NOW would have you believe instead that the entire country views ICE as a modern-day Gestapo. But the reality is that the Department of Homeland Security is simply enforcing the laws on the books and finally carrying out the will of the voters under President Trump’s leadership.

As DHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it in a January 20 press release:

In President Trump’s first year back in office, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 675,000 deportations.

As the above-noted polls suggest, most Americans welcome this news. The legacy media, however, is determined to find failure in any Trump success. The New York Times’ analysis of the situation is typical:

Under Mr. Trump, immigration arrests and deportations are much more visible and disruptive to communities across the country. The administration has also aggressively publicized its enforcement actions with a steady stream of slickly produced videos, memes and mug shots … Arrests at jails and prisons went up over the past year, but the increase was far exceeded by the growth in what ICE calls ‘at-large’ arrests, the apprehensions of immigrants on the streets, in courthouses, and at homes and businesses. These quadrupled to about 150,000 and made up a majority of arrests.

The Times conveniently fails to mention that the increase in at-large arrests was caused by Democrat officials who actively obstruct ICE operations. In “sanctuary states” these officials have directed local authorities to release illegal aliens from custody even if they know that ICE officers are on their way to arrest them.

In Minnesota, for example, this was accomplished by its state Attorney General Keith Ellison, who issued this advisory opinion: “Minnesota law prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from holding someone based on an immigration detainer if the person would otherwise be released from custody.”

At present, there are no fewer than 16 Democrat-controlled “sanctuary states” that have similarly irresponsible statutes, policies, or legal opinions in place that undermine federal law and endanger public safety by forcing ICE agents to apprehend illegal aliens on the streets. This inevitably gets people hurt or killed – which plays into the hands of the legacy media that is busily concocting a narrative that ICE officers are masked goons who randomly kidnap American citizens and whisk them away to detention centers where they are routinely brutalized. A recent “news story” in ProPublica is typical of these lurid tales:

Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched … Tallying the number of Americans detained by immigration agents is inherently messy and incomplete. The government has long ignored recommendations for it to track such cases.

The combination of such irresponsible reporting and headline hunting by Democrats is, of course, what led to the vilification of federal agents after activist Renee Good hit ICE officer Jonathan Ross with her SUV and was subsequently killed. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, the legacy media continues to canonize Good as an innocent observer brutally martyred by ICE thugs. NPR gave Minnesota AG Keith Ellison a platform to perpetuate this myth: “She was a compassionate neighbor trying to be a legal observer on behalf of her immigrant neighbors,” Ellison claimed. “That’s what she was doing at the moment of her death.”

This is nonsense, but the media continues to peddle false narratives about “martyrs” like Renee Good while ignoring the arrests of murderers, pedophiles, terrorists, and drug traffickers in American communities. This contributes to civil unrest which opportunists like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who badly needs a distraction from the burgeoning fraud scandal that is about to swallow what remains of his long, strange trip through American politics.

Another misleading narrative perpetrated by Reuters captures the intentional dishonesty of the press. Last week, the outlet released footage of ICE breaking down a door and dragging a half-dressed elderly man – ostensibly an American citizen – out into the cold. Looks bad, right? Well, as it turns out, that supposed “victim” lives with two illegal aliens with final orders of removal who are convicted sex offenders. He refused to identify himself or cooperate with police, and thus was detained.

Reuters and the liberal propagandists spreading this story far and wide online know exactly what they’re doing. They know that the public would fully back the Trump administration and ICE if Americans knew the full story, and so they intentionally rush to print before the details are out and conveniently ignore context when it becomes available.

The fact remains that President Trump was elected in significant part to secure the border and deport illegals. An overwhelming majority of the public still supports his immigration policies, including removing those who have violated our laws and have no right to be here.

David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.