The elitist media are pushing one narrative when it comes to illegal immigration enforcement that an “authoritarian” Trump administration has unleashed out-of-control ICE agents to terrorize local communities around the country.
So it’s no surprise that the September 20 ICE shooting of illegal alien Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin, Texas sparked three days of intensive coverage of alleged ICE overreach.
MRC analysts looked at the broadcast network (ABC, CBS, NBC) evening and morning shows and found they jammed their programs with 28 minutes, 53 seconds of ICE confrontation stories within just three days (September 20-September 23) of coverage.
Overall, ABC spent the most amount of time on ICE confrontations (11 minutes, 44 seconds). NBC devoted 9 minutes, 56 seconds of coverage. CBS aired 9 minutes, 56 seconds on ICE.
Over that same time, ABC, CBS, NBC spent 0 minutes on heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants. The networks could have reported on the September 19 murder of UMass Dartmouth football player in Providence, Rhode Island, by a Nigerian national who overstayed his visa.
The networks haven’t reported on any crimes involving illegal immigrants in the 9 days (September 20-September 29) since the Austin case.
In fact, they’ve deliberately skipped over horrific cases involving illegals (as a recent NewsBusters study showed) for well over a month (August 25 - September 29).
@NBCNews correspondent @Maggie_Vespa segment on ICE as aired on the September 23, 2026 @Todayshow. pic.twitter.com/DPClPT2VBB
— Geoffrey Dickens (@GCDickens) September 29, 2026
The tone of the September 23 NBC Today report was typical of last week’s coverage. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie introduced the story: “ICE arrests are continuing to soar nationwide and this morning new videos shedding light on troubling cases of people getting hurt, in some cases killed, in what the critics say are overly-aggressive tactics,” before throwing it to correspondent Maggie Vespa.
Vespa opened the segment this way: “Just this week an American citizen was hospitalized here in Illinois in what authorities say was a case of mistaken identity. Local officials now sounding alarms from Michigan to Texas, as the Trump administration touts results. This morning, new videos and outrage over violent immigration arrests nationwide.”
Vespa even included a clip from the Democratic Mayor of Evanston, Illinois, claiming that “ICE is terrorizing our communities; they’re looking for people, but they’re grabbing anybody with brown skin.”
For this study, MRC analysts looked at the broadcast evening (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, NBC Today) from September 20 through the morning of September 29.
