When legacy media exploited the five-year-old child of an illegal alien to evoke social media sympathy for the lawbreaker who was shot by ICE Thursday - and distract the reader from his violent criminal history - DHS called out their journalistic malpractice…with facts.
On Thursday afternoon, Oscar Belgal, an illegal alien was shot once in his car when he reportedly rammed the vehicles of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to detain him. He was immediately treated and taken to the hospital.
Since his five-year-old son (who was unharmed) was in the backseat of the car at the time, liberal anti-ICE media pounced on the opportunity to use the child to emotionally manipulate their audiences and promote their narratives on social media.
A CBS post begins by reporting that a Democrat congressman “met the 5-year-old son of the man who was shot by ICE in New York City and was in the backseat of the car during the shooting” and quoting the congressman’s account of the boy’s trauma.
“Where was this outrage when an NYPD officer was brutally stabbed by two illegal aliens last week?” DHS asked, replying to the post:
“Time and time again, sanctuary politicians put illegal aliens above the safety of American citizens. The real outrage should come from American citizens whose elected leaders have failed them by repeatedly releasing criminal illegal aliens back into their communities.”
NYPD Detective Jose Mercedes was stabbed seven times last week by two men identified as illegal aliens. Like Belgal, they are Dominican nationals with criminal records.
Posts by CNN, NBC News and Forbes also used the boy to pander pathos and vilify the ICE agents, prompting DHS to reprimand them with replies presenting the facts that the media should be emphasizing in their reporting:
“These journalists should know better.
This individual decided to not comply with lawful orders, given by federal law enforcement officers.
He has charges in New York for robbery, grand larceny, and armed theft with a deadly weapon.
He put his child in danger by choosing to accelerate at a high speed and ram two different vehicles in what appears to be an attempt to harm ICE officers.
Any public outcry should be directed towards this reckless criminal.
Misleading reports like this are part of why there has been a 1,600% increase in assaults of our officers.”
“The media’s narrative about this criminal illegal gang member has completely fallen apart,” DHS declared in reply when a Politico post promoted its story headlined “DHS chief defends New York ICE shooting, calling victim one of ‘the worst of the worst.’”
“Yes, this criminal illegal is the worst of the worst. He has prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession. He also has associations to the Trinitarios gang,” DHS noted.
The Politico article failed to detail the illegal alien’s criminal history. Instead, it simply reported that ICE “pointed to what they characterize as Belgal’s extensive criminal record as grounds to apprehend him.”
