You can tell exactly how damaging the migrant crime narrative is to the left, the media, and the Biden campaign (pardon the redundancies), by the intensity with which the media try to squash it. The latest such instance comes via, of course, MSNBC- specifically, host Chris Hayes.
Watch as Hayes closes his report by suggesting that migrant crime does not exist, and that such reports are merely a “roar in the right-wing media machine”, created to instill “fear, not facts”:
CHRIS HAYES: And then this month, guess what happened? Manhattan prosecutors dropped the charges against Boada, you know why? They told the judge that further investigation proved that Boada, that guy, who had always professed his innocence, did not participate in the attack in question. They misidentified him. It wasn’t him. They got the wrong guy. Not him. He didn’t do it. Have you seen coverage of that? You think they’ve run 84 segments on Fox News about that? Of course by then, the man’s life is upended. The myth of migrant crime had already become a roar in the right-wing media machine, and they will do it over and over again. Whether it’s false rumors of a migrant caravan about to destroy America or the Guardian Angels live on Fox wailing on a man they claimed was a migrant thief when he was neither. He was an American from The Bronx who had not stolen anything. That happened last month. Remember all of this the next time you hear an immigration horror story out of Republicans. Aiming for fear, not facts.
“Fear, not facts” is how best to describe MSNBC on any given issue, but I digress. Here Hayes cherrypicks two stories: the sex trafficking victim mentioned in Sen. Katie Britt’s State of the Union response, and the migrant who had charges dropped against him in the gang beatdown of two New York cops in Times Square.
I don’t know the extent to which MSNBC viewers might accept Hayes’ fantasy fiction as truth, but the fact remains: NYPD cops were beaten down by a migrant gang in Times Square. Whether or not young Mr. Boada was a part of that beatdown becomes immaterial to the broader story, which is that migrant crime actually exists.
Hayes expects his viewers to forget the fact that a young Georgia woman was brutally murdered by a migrant. An illegal alien, if you will. President Joe Biden addressed the murderous alien as such during the address, and that triggered no small amount of caterwauling on MSNBC. Migrant crime exists.
Additionally, there are many such cases that go unreported in national media. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen, no matter how badly Hayes wishes it so. There’s the Tren de Aragua murder in Miami, the robbery epidemic in New York City, and several reported rape cases- including such cases where minors are involved.
No matter how fervently Hayes might want this story to go away, it won’t. Hayes’ report very much reminded me of that scene in The Wire where Marlo walks away from the security guard after boosting a lollipop, but not before saying:
You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.
The left and the media would very much like Biden’s border disaster to go away, and these migrant crime stories to disappear from public memory. But it’s the other way.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024:
So it’s been a few days since the Republican response to the State of the Union. By now, the performance of Senator Katie Britt has been roasted and panned by Democrats, Republicans, SNL, pretty much everyone. But beyond the spectacle of it, there's a very serious story of misinformation she included that night. Now she’s being called out for it. In the speech, if you recall, Britt took the horrible, incredibly graphic and disturbing story of a Mexican sex trafficking survivor from 20 years ago in Guadalajara, in the interior of Mexico, and tried to blame Joe Biden's current border policy for it. Britt was roundly criticized by journalists and by the survivor herself.
KARLA JACINTO: In fact, I hardly ever cooperate with politicians because it seems to me that they only want an image. I think she should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.
HAYES: That was Karla Jacinto Romero, with good advice that Republicans absolutely refused to take. Her story- her horrible story appropriated by Katie Britt. The twisted claims were wildly and grossly misleading. She implied it was happening in the U.S. now because of Biden's border policy? But here’s the thing. That’s gotten a lot of attention. It’s dime a dozen when it comes to right-wing immigrant fear mongering. Remember this guy? Remember him? He's a migrant from Venezuela named Johan Boada. He was the focus of the right-wing media's hate last month after he was accused of being part of a gang that attacked NYPD officers in Times Square, and then he was subsequently photographed flipping the bird while leaving court. And to be clear, when I saw that image and this story break earlier this year, I thought, “if I were a Fox producer, or worked at The New York Post, I’d be running with this. I mean. I’m a bleeding heart liberal and even I found this image provocative, let’s say. So did actual Fox producers, who covered Boada in at least, get this, 84 segments over 38 days, according to Media Matters.
SEAN HANNITY: …were caught on tape giving the middle finger as they waltzed out of jail.
DANA PERINO: He's being let out of court yesterday on bail and he gives America, the press, everybody there the double bird.
JESSE WATTERS: So let me get this straight. He strolls across the border, was given free shelter, beat up cops and suffered no consequences, and this is how he thanks us.
ROBERT ALMONTE: This guy coming out and flipping off the camera, really what he's doing is he’s flipping off all of America.
HAYES: The hatefest even went from Fox News to a political ad cut by a pro Trump superPAC. And then this month, guess what happened? Manhattan prosecutors dropped the charges against Boada, you know why? They told the judge that further investigation proved that Boada, that guy, who had always professed his innocence, did not participate in the attack in question. They misidentified him. It wasn’t him. They got the wrong guy. Not him. He didn’t do it. Have you seen coverage of that? You think they’ve run 84 segments on Fox News about that? Of course by then, the man’s life is upended. The myth of migrant crime had already become a roar in the right-wing media machine, and they will do it over and over again. Whether it’s false rumors of a migrant caravan about to destroy America or the Guardian Angels live on Fox wailing on a man they claimed was a migrant thief when he was neither. He was an American from The Bronx who had not stolen anything. That happened last month. Remember all of this the next time you hear an immigration horror story out of Republicans. Aiming for fear, not facts.
