It is a tearjerker of a story — until you get four paragraphs deep.
The New York Times reported this week that a well-liked Houston activist who has worked tirelessly for the local Guatemalan community faces deportation after he invited officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to attend a public meeting on deportation proceedings.
The first three paragraphs of the Times article, titled “A Houston Activist Invited ICE to a Community Meeting. Now, He Faces Deportation,” prime the reader specifically to sympathize with businessman Roland Gramajo.
The article begins like this:
He invited community activists from across the country. He also invited members of Congress. He even invited officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to talk about what rights people had and didn’t have if they were confronted by the authorities.
But three weeks after the meeting, it is Mr. Gramajo who faces deportation. He was arrested near his home last Thursday, a move that has stunned his family and rekindled concerns that the Trump administration is targeting advocates as part of its crackdown on illegal immigration.
The Times has its audience captive. It is nearly impossible not to be on this man’s side. But then, the paper hits its readers with this paragraph:
Now, many are wondering if it wasn’t Mr. Gramajo’s entreaty to ICE that drew the agency’s scrutiny.
What did Gramajo and the Times expect? The man has been in the United States illegally (operating a business no less!) for more than a decade. He then very boldly invited ICE to a public meeting on immigration enforcement. As a result of his own bravado, Gramajo now faces deportation. Yet the Times frames the story as one where Trump administration officials are guilty of “targeting activists” who are “helping” illegal immigrants?
Contra the Times’ misleading framing, it doesn’t sound to me like the administration ever went out looking for this guy at all. He practically turned himself in.
This is how Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw sums up Gramajo’s story as told by the Times: “Illegal Immigrant Invites ICE To Town Hall. Is Shocked To Find He’s Being Deported.”
I have to say I agree. You can’t dare ICE officials to do something and then act surprised when they take you up on it.
