The leftist news organization, Salon, continued to spread fear of mass deportations in an article on Monday mocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents as “having ‘fun’ again, as Trump sets them free to deport whoever they want.”
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have been fighting back against these forms of “fake news” reports that take some elements of truth while distorting other facts to drive an anti-Trump agenda. Despite efforts by DHS officials to set the record straight, Salon chose to continue fanning the flames of fear and hate.
“ICE agents and other federal cops are having ‘fun’ again, as Trump sets them free to deport whoever they want,” Salon’s Heather Digby Parton wrote. The headline states: “Trump takes the ‘shackles’ off: Mass deportations begin as the world looks on in outrage.”
Leftist media outlets like Salon have been responding to the targeted roundup of criminal aliens carried out by ICE agents in an operation that was designed and planned during the Obama Administration. The operation led to the arrest of nearly 700 criminal aliens in six municipalities across the country, Breitbart Texas reported. Despite the targeted nature of the operation and the fact that it was a regularly scheduled operation planned months before Trump took office, fake news reports blamed the Trump Administration for being overly aggressive in rounding up people for mass deportations, or for carrying out some type of revenge operation.
The agency followed that up with two additional tweets saying, “These reports create mass panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger,” and “Any groups falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.”
“The focus of these targeted enforcement operations is consistent with the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis,” DHS spokesperson Gillian Christensen told the New York Times.
DHS Secretary John F. Kelly issued a statement that read, in part, “Of those arrested, approximately 75 percent were criminal aliens, convicted of crimes including, but not limited to, homicide, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual assault of a minor, lewd and lascivious acts with a child, indecent liberties with a minor, drug trafficking, battery, assault, DUI and weapons charges.”
Salon accused President Donald Trump of conflating the issue of keeping potential terrorists out of the country and the removal of criminal aliens. They quoted excerpts from President Trump’s CPAC speech:
[L]et me state this as clearly as I can, we are going to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country. We will not be deterred from this course, and in a matter of days, we will be taking brand-new action to protect our people and keep America safe, you will see the action. . . .
As we speak today, immigration officers are finding the gang members, the drug dealers and the criminal aliens and throwing them the hell out of our country. And we will not let them back in. They’re not coming back in, folks. They do, they’re going to have bigger problems than they ever dreamt of.
Salon twisted the President’s words and explained, “The merging of these separate strands of immigration policy beyond Trump’s rhetoric and into practice is beginning to become clear as reports of Customs and Border Patrol and ICE agents implementing draconian new policies all over the country have started filtering into the media.”
Unfortunately, many of those reports “filtering into the media” were fake news articles like the Associated Press’ report about President Trump considering using the national guard as immigration deportation officers. White House and DHS officials quickly debunked the article, Breitbart Texas reported, but media outlets persist in using it as kindling wood to build the fires of discontent.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.
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