“Careless detention” and open-borders journalism
Hey, boys and girls, it’s time for another Pulitzer fishing expedition by the Washington Post.
I just finished wading through the paper’s hype-inflated series on the federal immigration detention system’s shoddy health care.
WaPo purports to expose a “hidden network” of immigrant prisons and pretends to blow the lid off Abu Ghraib-like and Gitmo-esque conditions in a handful of cases that supposedly symbolize systemic abuse that harkens back to FDR’s concentration camps.
Newsflash for the prize-anglers at the WaPo:
1) Despite your nutroots-ian descriptions of the sytem, there’s nothing “hidden” about the network of federal detention centers. Here’s a list of them all, along with the full detention operations manual. The “unseen network of prisons” has only been “unseen” by Beltway journalists who don’t give a damn about the deportation and detention abyss unless it can be used to cast America as oppressive human rights violators.
And to win journalism prizes.
2) Complaints about inadequate illegal alien detainee health care are published perenially by open borders-friendly media outlets spoon-fed by illegal alien advocacy groups seeking to undermine workplace raids and deportation laws. Their agenda isn’t to make the detention and removal process more efficient and safe for everyone (no reports telling the story of ICE detention and removal officers who have to deal with violent illegal alien felons on a daily basis, you’ll note). Their agenda is to render it inoperable.
3) The WaPo’s “scoop” today about the drugging of the most difficult-to-manage deportees is also old news.
4) The real scandal is that even after 9/11, there are a mere 33,000 detention beds for an illegal alien population upwards of 20 million.
5) The real scandal is that while 33,000 are in custody, some 400,000-500,000 illegal alien deportation fugitives are on the loose after they’ve been ordered to leave by immigration judges.
6) The real scandal is that for every detainee in custody, there are countless others who have been released and gone on to commit crimes and wreak havoc on American soil.
But those won’t be splashed on the front page and packaged with snazzy, multimedia features.
Because those won’t win journalism prizes.
***
More reax…
The Post piece (with an accompanying 60 Minutes segment) was a resounding success for the advocacy group that planted it, as was last week’s New York Times story along the same lines. The goal of all this coordinated coverage is to delegitimize the whole notion of detaining illegal immigrants, so as to prevent the government from being able to enforce the immigration law…
…The stories of deaths in detention are individual tragedies, of course, but without a bigger picture, they’re just sob stories. The number and rate of deaths in immigrant have actually been going down. Of the 311,213 deportable foreigners held in detention in 2007, 11 of them died. That’s 11 too many, obviously, but get real. And that’s less than half the number from three years before, when there were fewer people detained. And the death rate in detention for 2005 was 1/79th that of the age-adjusted rate for jails and prisons overall.
Even if there isn’t a crisis, the article plausibly suggests that there are problems in the recruitment and retention of nursing staff and the coordination of care. If so, then this is an issue of resources, not a Dickensian tale of callous bureaucrats. And even there, spending on detainee medical services has doubled since 2003.
From reader Glenn:
The Washington Post is running a four-part series on the health care of detained “immigrants” that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and plays fast and loose with a select set of “victims” to bash ICE (the Post is blatantly pro-illegal alien). In order to portray the ICE “victim” in the best light, the WaPo reporters, drawing on an ICE document that is linked to the article, only mention and try to deflect one charge from a 1998 conviction but willfully fail to acknowledge that she was also convicted to two more serious charges:
“[In 2006,] She pleaded guilty to drug possession and served her time. Ordinarily, that would have been that. But ICE had begun scouring jails and prisons nationwide for people it might be able to deport, and a check of Harvill’s criminal history turned up a decade-old felony conviction for buying stolen jewelry. Her lawyer insisted she’d had no idea it was stolen. A judge suspended the sentence and put her on probation, which was terminated early for good behavior.” WaPo 5/12/2008
The deception is revealed in the ICE letter (transcribed from pdf immediately below) from which the Post got the info on the stolen jewelry but intentionally ignored the rest of the sentence regarding trafficking and possession. It’s hard to portray a drug trafficker and user as a “victim.”
I’ve written the WaPo Ombudsman about this blatant effort to hide pertinent information but I doubt she’ll respond.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » Media Bias Roundup - 05/14/08
- CitizenCaucus.org» illegal immigration news » “Careless detention” and open-borders journalism
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Catch-And-Release, Deportation Abyss
Patterico
» Alito Whacks Biden
Stop The ACLU
» Where Should Obama Give His Great Middle East Speech?Gateway Pundit
» Sweet!... Danish Navy Sinks Somali Pirate Ship (Video)Riehl World View
» Breaking News On Obama SpeechJawa Report
» Danish Warship Sinks PirateNewsBusters.org
» Matthews: It's 'Really Hard' to 'Salute Sarah Palin'Stop The ACLU
» Lawsuit Over Obama’s Birth Certificate Goes To SCOTUS FridayRiehl World View
» Is Barack Hussein Obama Going All Native On Us Already?Marginal Revolution
» Why do so many more women study abroad?Right Wing Nut House
» ISRAEL GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF PLANNING IRAN ATTACK?Weekly Standard
» Why Not Baghdad?
Seal the border and kick them out if they have broken our laws to get here. Let them worry about their own treatment in the glorious and SOVEREIGN nations that they came from.
End of story!
I thought the phrase “careless detention” was about the incarceration of two Border Patrol officers for using force in attempting to apprehend a violent drug smuggler.
Who’s paying for the medical treatment?
Pitiful. I demand the gov’t get its act together and treat these invaders with the dignity US taxpayers can afford. This must be corrected immediately. So, I offer the solution so the WaPo liberal writers can stop wringing their hands. STOP DETAINING THEM. If caught illegally in teh US, IMMEDIATE DEPORTATION. Afterall, if someone is here illegally for more than 2 days, and has not reported to ICE with their intent to file for assyulum, they obviously did nto come here for refugee/assylum status in the first place. So why spend taxpayer $ on immigration hearings, so they can lie to us? Deport them. Do not pass go and do not collect a reprieve. There, no more problems with detatining the invaders. How hard is that?
It’s a shame that the Border Patrol agents weren’t better shots.
Also heard that Mr. Johnny Sutton might be in some hot water over this very case.
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if Mr. Sutton had to spend some time in prison?
That would do my heart good. Would partially restore my faith in our justice system. He should get a little of what Mr. Nifong received.
.
i see this as a win for the anti-illegal immigration (AII) crowd. they’re pushing hard because they’re losing big.
the only thing their pushing hard has done is forced AII crowd to start proving the reason we’re against illegal immigration. for so long the narrative of us simply being racists worked. but as people see how much their pockets are being affected, it’s become a winning issue for us.
keep it up.
Here’s an idea… don’t break the laws a_ _holes.
You broke the law to get into this country. While here instead of doing what our liberal friends like to dub “the work Americans won’t do” you in turn decide to break more laws which land you in jail. Boo freakin’ hoo.
Must be surprised that American jails aren’t a walk in the park. Deal.With.It.
Let’s fix this situation by the immediate issuance of pre-paid health cards good for medical and dental coverage in the state of Chiapas.
Just as a musing…if there are 33000 beds, but 14 million of them…and as general rule stuff 15 people into a 1 BR house (check another post i have on the other illegal immigrant thread)…
does that mean that the 33000 beds could be -stretched- to accommodate a couple of hundred thousand people? LOL
In all seriousness…round them up. send them home. free up the resources they are stealing for citizens here. stop peddling to illegals and their supporters. be pro american.
Its that easy.
Yeah! What 30 said.
I saw the 60 Minutes piece on this topic last Sunday; I wanted to yak. It was an absolutely slanted piece of journalistic garbage; it’s another reason why the MSM must be busted up into smaller pieces and forced to adhere to stricter reporting standards.
I just came across this article and as Michelle often states, make sure you’re not drinking anything or are around anything fragile.
http://www.newsmax.com/us/missing_laptop_computers/2008/05/14/95961.html
Oh just have dogs look at them, have them pig pile on each other, throw panties on them …. oh wait that’s REAL torture and uncomfortable situations( sarc off)
30 …
Isn’t it amazing that with all these illegals that are leaving due to local enforcement of labor and immigration laws that “those jobs Americans won’t do” are still getting done … and the unemployment rate went down a little bit more … hmmmm … could it be that the employers finally had to pay a real wage to get that work done so an American took that job …
Abso-fricking-lutely amazing isn’t it?
maybe they would like to trade in for a mexican prison…. roflmao.
#5 Jtex
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if Mr. Sutton had to spend some time in prison?
I say, let those Border Patrolmen go, then put Johnny Sutton and that drug smuggler in their old cells.
Maybe these Mexigrant jailbirds can form a UNION.
VOTE DEMOCRAT FOR HOPE AND CHANGE!!!
Just hope that those two get that poetic justice after El Presidente Jorge Arbusto leaves office so he’s not tempted to give them presidential pardons on his way out the door.
libocrat
Hope and Change …
Yep … Hope to hell I still have some Change left in my pocket when they get through with me …
Liberals are so full of it.
No detention needed:
1) build multiple trebuchets along the southern border
2) fly/drive every illegal that is caught to the border
3) send them home using the trebuchets
problem solved.
Errah a conservative friend of mine suggested we build the fence and then a playground slide with the bottom edge of the slide mounted to the top of the fence. Problem solved, errah.
ROFL Chuck…
just pluck ‘em back?
Mwuahahahaha…
Can we also use ballista? PLEASE?!?
*snicker*
Don’t worry about it, Hawkeye. Senor Boosh won’t pay any attention to Ramos and Compean. His compadres in Mexico city wouldn’t like it.
The agents’ plight still bugs me more than anything the WaPo can dig up, but not as much as the deafening silence from those who should care about what happens to American citizens when they try to uphold our laws.
How ’bout it, MM? It’s been more than 500 days since Ramos and Compean went into solitary….
Chuck …
How about we replace the Panama Canal … we do not use it nearly as much as we once did ever since Jimmy Carter signed it over to the Panamanian Government in 1977 … the canal has gone downhill in maintenance and security ever since …
We should dig a new canal from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California …
1. It would become a natural border with Mexico …
2. It would provide many thousands of jobs for the number of years during construction …
3. It would provide many jobs maintaining, protecting and running it afterwards …
Just a thought …
Trebuchets and Ballistas wouldn’t get them very far and they’d just get carried back across for free medical care for their injuries. Under Eisenhower, they would take them by ship to Vera Cruz, which made it a little difficult to just run back across. I would rather see my tax dollars being spent there than on loan councilling by La Raza.
libocrat said:
Not if we put them on the *front* of the ballista.
Mean, i know..but slightly entertaining.
I dont care how they’re removed and relocated…as long as they arent in my country anymore.
Howsbout our illegal Mexigrants get a sentence of hard labor. They are sentenced to build a GREAT BIG FENCE, electrified on it’s southern side!
After the fence is completed we usher them back to their homeland and plug the sucker in.
How much health-care does an illegal alien need in the 24-72 hours it should take to get his sorry butt out of country? A splint, a tourniquet, or a pressure dressing should hold for that long. Anything more is fraud, waste, and abuse.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, Collier cuts benefits for non-profits that don’t verify the legal status of those they serve
Not a fence…we gotta think long term..the canal was a good idea post 27, but i think Latinos are pretty good swimmers (would probably keep the Arab Muslim extremist out, though). How about a “Great Wall of America” built like the Chinese did a few years back. When it has fulfilled the purpose, think of what a great new tourist draw!
Sure, but they don’t really get the nice high arc of a trebuchet. I like the sound of watermellon hitting pavement when they land.
Now there’s a really GREAT idea! We should get Sheriff Arpaio to take over. He’d get ‘er done.
Sheriff Joe is having his wings clipped by a liberal governor…he better hurry
and nice point about the splat sound…i didnt think about that
I don’t know if anyone here has ever seen the T.V. Series “Enterprise” with Scott Bakula, but if you have, you may remember the “Superlaser” weapon that was used by some bad guys to create a nasty trench right through the middle of Florida.
I’m just wondering if we can get one of those to create a trench right along the US-Mexico border?
A really brilliant Sister of Mercy relayed several weeks ago while speaking of U. S. abuses at border area holding facilities that, “the border is an illusion.” I think I mentioned this before, but the extent of the wackiness exhibited by the far left cannot be underestimated and must not be overlooked.
True. And, not just in regard to illegal immigration.
Easy way to solve it. Every pro-illegal immigration idiot should be given an automatic payment form which garnishes their salary from $50 to $500 a week (depending on their income level) which would then be used to offset the costs incurred to maintain illegal aliens in the US. They need to put their money where their mouth is and stop making decisions for everyone else. Bet they’d change their tune real fast once it gets through their thick skulls that yes, there are actually consequences to their rantings, and yes, it does effect them personally.
On May 14th, 2008 at 2:57 pm, nyc123me said:
LOL. So true. Liberals and pols love spending YOUR money on their compassionate programs. As soon as they see THEIR money taken and spent, the tune changes. I would much rather stop all the entitlements and other nonsense to able bodied people, and instead, redirect that $ to reduce the retirement age of Americans who work. At least then Americans who actually paid in the $ get some of it back rather than going to all these parasites invading our country. Sorry,having a little mid life thing going on here.
Holy Cow, I just heard some nut on the radio calling for a hault on all I.C.E. raids until a Moratorium can be formed about illegals. I bet
ourtheir elected officials in Washington will grant it.Imagine a newspaper that made it an editorial point to find out and publish every criminal’s immigration status.
Imagine journalists doing real work.
.
.
.
OK. Reality is back.
Second Sight, wake me up when journalists start covering the whole story. Like their legal status. I know special order 40 stops the police from asking the illegal invaders their status, but I don’t think reporters are bound by the “special” order 40.
I believe I have the solution to two of our nation’s most severe crisis.
To begin, We are confronted with a significant energy crisis; this could be directly addressed with nuclear energy. The application of the implementation of nuclear energy plants is now decades-old and benefits from having witnessed the potentials of failures and errors; it is now a mature technology. The modern dilemma revolves primarily around the DISPOSAL of the resulting NUCLEAR WASTE.
So what do we do with the waste?
The second massive crisis facing the sovereignty of the United States is an UNENDING MASSIVE INFLUX OF UNDOCUMENTED AND ILLEGAL INVADERS onto US soil and into US communities. The solution to this crisis sensibly begins with a physical, theoretical, or virtual fence of some kind. The debate over a fence primarily addresses two concerns: the cost and the effectiveness.
OK… Let’s go all out with nuclear. With the resulting waste, let’s make little “hot” bricks, which we stack either vertically or horizontally (or a little of both) as a fence along the southern border. For cutesy purposes, we’ll call it “the yellow brick road”. (And spent fuel rods are ideally suited for bars of a fence anyway). It would be highly cost-effective as a solution for both issues. Our “open border” will now become known as an “open microwave oven”, And a simple propaganda campaign explaining how this will cook one from the inside out should scare the bejesus out of anyone who thinks life will get BETTER by sneaking into the US.
Seriously, we have to put a Great deal of waste somewhere! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste) Why NOT the most lawless turf of our nation?
Ahhh, I suppose we’d just end up with sortof Tex-Mex mutant class…never mind.
Wouldn’t that make them eligible for some sort of disability payment?