Open Borders and Missing Adjectives in the Liberal Media

By Peter Patrisi


The open-borders lobby long has sought to muddy the issue of immigration by deliberately—and dishonestly—omitting the word “illegal” whenever possible and conflating all immigrants, legal and otherwise.
“Human beings can’t be illegal,” they insist.
The liberal media all too often have been complicit in the effort to sidestep the distinction, but it’s a distinction with a very big difference. (Substituting the euphemism “undocumented” for “illegal,” as they often do when including an adjective at all, doesn’t change that.)
The phenomenon was on dishonest display when a young Muslim woman, Nabra Hassanen, 17, was fatally beaten with a baseball bat in the wee hours of  Father’s Day morning in what police determined was a “road rage” incident.
Police arrested and charged a suspect, Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, an illegal alien from El Salvador. But The Washington Post buried the detail of Martinez Torres’ immigration status in the 24th paragraph of an article on the crime published online June 19.
Even then, the suspect’s illegal status was referenced only indirectly, with The Post reporting: “U.S. immigration officials requested a ‘detainer’ be placed on him at the county jail, meaning they are interested in possible future deportation proceedings.”
The words “illegal immigrant” were noticeable only by their absence, as they were also from a follow-up article June 21.
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Now, six days later, The Washington Post reports that Martinez Torres had been accused the week before Nabra’s slaying of sexually assaulting and battering a young woman he knew. (She asked, however, that no charges be brought against him.)
This latest report in one of the nation’s top newspapers also omits any mention of Martinez Torres’ status as an illegal immigrant.
Then there was the case of the sexual assault charges brought and subsequently dropped against two young illegal immigrants in neighboring Maryland in mid-March.
The case drew national headlines after a 14-year-old girl said she had been raped by the young men, ages 17 and 18, in a restroom of Rockville High School.
Before Nabra’s slaying, it was the worst PR nightmare for the apologists for illegal immigration since a San Francisco woman, Kate Steinle, was fatally shot by a five-times-deported illegal alien in July 2015.
After prosecutors announced May 5 that they were dropping rape and other sex offense charges “due to the lack of corroboration and substantial inconsistencies” in the girl’s initial statements to police, the open-borders lobby and their water carriers in the liberal, mainstream media sought to redirect attention from the suspects’ immigration status, throwing the girl under the bus in the process.
Why did conservative media outlets that had made such a cause célèbre of the case go mute after the charges were dropped, apologists for illegal immigrants demanded to know in an effort to change the subject.
For the record, the dropping of the charges was duly reported, just not as sensationally. The reason why is no more complicated than the “man-bites-dog” formulation of what constitutes news—but the apologists knew that.
The editorial board of The Washington Post weighed in under the headlines “Immigrant-bashing over a crime that didn’t happen” (print edition) and “The Rockville rape charges have been dropped. Will anti-immigration fervor abate?” (online version).
Again, note the consistent, deliberate omission of “illegal.”
“Shouting the allegation, and when it doesn’t add up, whispering the update,” CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter tut-tutted and tsk-tsked on the cable outlet’s “Reliable Sources,” taking rival Fox News Channel to task.
So what if it did? This is nothing more than a liberal media “trompe l’oeil,” an illusion designed to take the public’s eye off the ball.
For one thing, the sexual assault charges may have been dropped, but the two young men—Henry Sanchez Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17—are hardly off the hook. They might still face child pornography charges over receiving and forwarding nude “selfies” the girl apparently sent to one of them over her cellphone.
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But even if those charges are also dropped, the two surely face deportation as illegal immigrants. So does Sanchez Milian’s father, Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, who is also in the country illegally.
The Post’s editorial to the contrary notwithstanding, “immigration-bashing” didn’t occur in the sensational coverage the case deservedly garnered. Illegal immigrant-bashing, perhaps; immigrant-bashing, no.
Most Americans aren’t against immigration when those coming into the country follow the proper legal procedures, but by wide margins they oppose illegal immigration.
Omitting the adjective doesn’t change that fact. What part of “illegal” do the advocates of uncontrolled immigration not understand?
Nor are those who demand respect for U.S. national sovereignty “nativists” and “bigots,” as The Post’s editorial maligned those who cited the Rockville incident in underscoring the need for greater border security. And no, their “quick-draw condemnation” did not stem from what The Post called the two men’s “otherness”—whatever that means.
All of the cover smoke laid down by the open-borders crowd and its media mouthpieces cannot obscure the real bottom line here.
Regardless of what really happened in that Rockville High School restroom that day, whether the sex was entirely consensual or not, this sordid episode would not—and could not—have happened had Sanchez Milian and Montano not been in the country illegally.
Even more regrettably, had Martinez Torres been deported to El Salvador, police allege, Nabra Hassanen would be alive today.