The Media Research Center loves highlighting crimes committed by illegal immigrants — but it hates being called out on the fact that it does so for cynical political purposes to advance partisan anti-immigrant narratives and that doing so unfairly demonizes all immigrants. For instance, take this April 2 post by Alex Christy, in which he labors mightily to distract from right-wing cynicism over this issue:
In the world of CNN, Donald Trump and conservative media’s focus on illegal immigrant murderers is just an attempt to blame “brown folks” for all of the country’s problems. Inside Politics host Dana Bash and national politics correspondent Eva McKend’s Monday assessment came as Trump traveled to Michigan, where a young woman was recently murdered by an illegal immigrant.
Before the table discussion, correspondent Alayna Treene was in Michigan to set the scene, “And as part of that crime push, he’s actually invited the family of a woman named Ruby Garcia to his Michigan event who, Ruby Garcia, was recently killed here in Michigan by an undocumented immigrant, and police authorities say that it was a domestic dispute.”
That is a sanitized version of what happened. Not only was the man previously deported, but the murder also took place during a carjacking.
Still, Bash accused Trump and conservatives of cherry-picking, “The fact that Trump is going to be pushing what you just heard him talking– he’s trying to call it an epidemic. It’s, you know, there are certainly some high-profile examples of some violence. He’s calling it migrant crime. I call it high-profile because in many ways, conservative media is trying to focus on a couple of really horrible events and make it as if it’s perhaps more brought, not perhaps make it sound like it is more broad than it is. Fact.”
The media cherry-picks all the time to fit their narratives, whether it’s the relationship between minorities and the police, guns, women seeking abortions, the morality or intelligence of certain Trump supporters, or any other topic that might make conservatives look bad, but an issue where liberals look bad is where Inside Politics decides to draw the line and insist that anecdotes not be confused for trends.
Christy went on to demonstrate some of that cynicism, justifying demonizing immigrants because the issue polls so well for Republicans:
As for McKend, she managed to be even crazier, “Yeah, Dana, the playbook is largely going to remain the same. He wants to continue to demonize immigrants. He wants to continue to try to argue to Americans, ‘these brown folks, they are the real reasons for your problems.’”
McKend also ignored polls that show immigration is becoming a crucial issue for voters when she tried to dismiss Trump’s focus on the issue as unwise, “The issue, though, when I speak to voters, is that, by and large, this is not where the anxieties lie. So, voters will often address the economy, stagnant wages, high grocery prices, buying a home as all real concerns, but because he is using this playbook again of punching down on immigrants, we’ll have to see if– how this plays.”
The same day, a post by Jorge Bonilla complained that non-right-wing newscasts called out that cynicism — in particular Donald Trump’s hyping of Garcia’s death — to try and spin away the fact that migrants commit less crime than Americans who are citizens:
What are the odds that three network newscasts would spit out the same talking point on migrant crime while covering a Trump campaign event? It turns out the odds are pretty good if the media need to firefight for President Biden on immigration, as they did tonight.
[…]When Scott mentions that Trump is “trying to turn the focus to the border”, she means off of abortion, which was the focal point of her report. And sandwiched between Trump and Biden quotes is the infamous line so often cited about migrants and crime.
But the rote incantation of this talking point, for years confined to Univision’s Jorge Ramos, is irrelevant within the migrant crime debate. An increase, even at a reduced rate versus historical averages, is still a net increase. These crimes are still being committed and there is zero proof that these criminals displaced American criminals ready, willing, and able to do crime.
Furthermore, they are crimes committed by people who did not enter into the country illegally or, in some of these instances, who entered into the country as a result of immigration changes imposed by President Biden.
And like Christy, Bonilla seems proud of cynically Garcia’s death because it hurts Biden:
For those keeping score at home, that’s three network newscasts, filing three separate campaign roundups but going to the same talking point on migrant crime. As Biden’s immigration numbers continue to drag him down, you can expect the media to go to this talking point more frequently.
If it weren’t for regime media, we’d have no media at all.
Bonilla, of course, is part of the regime media for Trump. And being a good Trump regime lackey, he omitted the fact that at his rally, Trump lied about having spoken with Garcia’s family.
Comedy cop Alex Christy complained that Jimmy Kimmel (whom the MRC hates) pointed out Trump’s exploitation of Garcia’s death in an April 6 post:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is a strange man. On his Thursday show, Kimmel wondered why Donald Trump would travel to Michigan to talk about border security since the state borders Canada, while also accusing Trump of exploiting the death of Ruby Garcia, a Michigan woman recently murdered by an illegal immigrant.
Kimmel was also not a fan of Trump’s new campaign message, “Somehow, in the middle of all these prosecutions, Trump has been on the road doing rallies, where you know, when you think back on all the presidents, there are so many great lines throughout history. Like, ‘Yes, we can’ and ‘Tear down the wall,’ ‘The buck stops here’ and this, new slogan from Donald Trump, ‘Stop Biden’s border bloodbath.’”
Thinking he had come up with some great “gotcha moment,” Kimmel continued, “he unrolled that one in Michigan. The only border Michigan shares is with Canada, but why get bogged down with details?”
Kimmel isn’t actually dumb enough to think that illegal immigrants who commit crimes are confined to states along the Southern border, he just wanted a cheap joke about Trump being the dumb one, even if it made no logical sense. Kimmel proved he knew better when he accused Trump of “shamelessly trying to exploit the murder of a young woman in Michigan, who was allegedly killed by a man she was dating, and who also happened to enter the country illegally.”
The video of Kimmel’s monologue attached to Christy’s post abruptly cut off there — Christy dishonestly censored the part of the monologue where Kimmel pointed out not only that Trump lied about having spoken to family members but also that the anecdotes he told about Garcia were lifted from a New York Post article. But exposing that truth would have undermined Christy’s narrative, so it had to be censored.
If Christy is deliberately hiding Trump’s falsehood, does that make him a comedy cop on the take?
Nevertheless, the MRC had its own exploitation to do. An April 11 post by Geoffrey Dickens included Garcia of “six of the most horrific cases of innocent victims killed by illegal immigrants during the Biden administration of which only one was covered (Ruby Garcia) but only because the networks used it to criticize Trump.” He failed to mention the fact that Trump was criticized for falsely claiming he met with Garcia’s family.