On Tuesday, ABC World News Tonight defended the arrest of an illegal immigrant who attacked ICE agents with a weed whacker while running through the streets of southern California. Despite a video showing the illegal alien chasing agents with the weed whacker and attempting to break into a car at a stop light, they criticized the use of what they dubbed a “violent border patrol detention”. Here was correspondent Trevor Ault:
Tonight, a controversial, violent Border Patrol detention caught on camera in California. Masked agents holding down forty-eight-year-old Narcisco Baranco in the Santa Ana street, repeatedly punching him while he’s on the ground. Baranco heard screaming and crying, resisting as they take him into a van. Baranco is the father of three U.S. Marines, approached while working a landscaping job. His son, Alejandro, a Marine veteran, now calling his dad's detention frustrating and inhumane.
ABC carefully showed only snippets of a video, and was sure to omit the parts where Baranco was seen swinging a weed whacker at agent’s faces before trying to enter the car.
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement, defending the force used by officers, but ABC was more interested in crowning Baraco as the victim of a crime, calling Trump’s border policies “aggressive”:
MUIR: In a statement, DHS says, “The agents took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.” It's another example of the Trump administration's sweeping deportation policy. Earlier this month, ICE agents seen chasing farm workers through strawberry fields in southern California.
AULT: David, Baranco is being held in ICE custody here in Los Angeles. These types of aggressive detentions have sparked protests, but the Trump administration is vowing to continue to ramp up its deportation efforts.
ABC refused to tell the whole story, highlighting only the parts that fit their narrative; that the deportations of illegal immigrants is somehow inherently evil.
The enforcement of immigration law was not optional, and individuals who have acted aggressively toward law enforcement agents are subject to necessary force to be detained, especially if they threaten physical harm to the agents.
California’s refusal to cooperate with ICE and DHS has caused these situations that escalate into violence, and the violence has not been caused by the agents, but rather detainees or onlookers who are violently anti-immigration, as evidenced the recent violent anti-ICE mobs in Los Angeles and encouraged by California Governor Gavin Newsom repeatedly calling Trump a “dictator” and “authoritarian.” He also continually sowed fear among Californians and gave them a motive to violently resist.
ABC's decision to falsely frame Baranco as an innocent victim of ICE only furthers division and allows for these types of arrests to become violent.
The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
ABC's World News Tonight With David Muir
06/24/20256:31:41 PM EST [TEASE]
10 seconds
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Border Patrol Detention Controversy]
DAVID MUIR: Tonight, the violent Border Patrol detention. Masked border agents and an undocumented immigrant at his landscaping job. His three sons are all U.S. Marines.(....)
6:43:14 PM EST
1 minute and 53 seconds
MUIR: We turn tonight to the dramatic images after a violent Border Patrol detention. Masked border agents and an undocumented immigrant at his landscaping job. His three sons are all U.S. Marines. Here's Trevor Ault.[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking News; Border Patrol Detention Controversy; Father of Three Marines Forcibly Detained in California]
TREVOR AULT: Tonight, a controversial, violent Border Patrol detention caught on camera in California. Masked agents holding down forty-eight-year-old Narcisco Baranco in the Santa Ana street, repeatedly punching him while he’s on the ground. Baranco heard screaming and crying, resisting as they take him into a van. Baranco is the father of three U.S. Marines, approached while working a landscaping job. His son, Alejandro, a Marine veteran, now calling his dad's detention frustrating and inhumane.
ALEJANDRO BARANCO [to KABC]: I was really mad, and then I was really sad. I just wish I could have been there to help him.
AULT: The Department of Homeland Security says the agents were defending themselves, claiming baranco assaulted those officers with a weed wacker, swinging it at an agent’s face. The video posted by the agency appears to show him trying to avoid detention, running through the street with that weed wacker as he's sprayed by the agents, even attempting to open a car door before being tackled.
BARANCO [to KABC]: From what I’m seeing, he saw these individuals come with masks, civilian clothes with guns out, and pretty sure he got scared.
MUIR: In a statement, DHS says, “The agents took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.” It's another example of the Trump administration's sweeping deportation policy. Earlier this month, ICE agents seen chasing farm workers through strawberry fields in southern California.
AULT: David, Baranco is being held in ICE custody here in Los Angeles. These types of aggressive detentions have sparked protests, but the Trump administration is vowing to continue to ramp up its deportation efforts, David?
MUIR: Trevor Ault reporting tonight. Trevor, thank you.
(...)
