Getting The Stomach For Deportations

No one should fall for the media sob stories

The White House last week released a Studio Ghibli-edit of a migrant arrest. The migrant being mocked was a morbidly obese drug dealer who cried during her arrest. The anime meme instantly drew fury. Critics claimed it was dehumanizing and downright evil. Even some right-wingers felt it was cruel and bad optics.

The backlash against the meme is part of a media campaign to sour the public on Trump’s immigration policy. Reporters have turned a few migrants into martyrs against the president’s desire to enforce immigration law. The purpose is to diminish the public’s appetite for deportations and convince them to share the Left’s open borders agenda.

This effort was to be expected. It wasn’t like the liberal media was suddenly going to embrace mass deportations with Trump in the White House. Like in the first term, journalists and Democrats will find any way to undermine the administration. They think they’ve found gold with migrant sob stories. While some of the public is losing its stomach for strong immigration enforcement, it isn’t translating into the outrage America experienced during the first administration. As Muslim advocacy groups gloomily note, there aren’t the same level of mass protests and social media outrage towards these actions as there were towards the travel ban in 2017 and family separation policies in 2018. It further proves Highly Respected’s point that the public is less politicized now than it was in the 2010s–and that’s a good thing. This allows Trump to do things that were once considered “beyond the pale.”

What’s disappointing is the number of online right-wingers, many of whom want mass deportations, fall for these sob stories. It demonstrates a weakness in fortitude. Some may wish that the Trump administration prioritize mass roundups instead of making examples of Venezuelan hairdressers. That’s legitimate, but videos of jackbooted agents throwing migrant workers into buses would generate even more outrage. One cannot cuck on this matter because the mass deportations would be even tougher for the public to handle. It’s counter-productive to give credence to the media’s pro-immigration campaign.

The most important thing to do is not take the media’s tales at face value. The two martyrs most deployed to undermine Trump’s deportations to El Salvador are not quite the innocent men journalists want to portray. Andry Jose Hernandez, a gay Venezuelan hairdresser, first came to the US illegally. Like most illegals under the Biden administration, he claimed asylum and got in through the CBP One app. He claimed his homeland was too anti-gay for him to stay in. That’s a dubious claim, considering Venezuela does not criminalize homosexuality. If we accepted this claim, we would essentially invite all LBGT people from countries without gay marriage to America. That’s not in the national interest.

Hernandez makes for an example to migrants who try to exploit our asylum system. It’s better to stay home where you don’t actually face persecution than to come to the U.S.

There’s an easy way to solve this without bringing Hernandez back to the states. Venezuela is complaining about its criminal citizens being deported to the Central American country’s prison. We can offer the socialist state the opportunity to bring Andrys and a few others home. Problem solved, all without conceding to the Left.

The other migrant sob story is an actual criminal and gang member. The media depicts this Salvadoran as a “Maryland father” and legal migrant. That’s not an accurate picture. The migrant previously committed several crimes and substantial evidence showed he was likely an MS-13 member. He was supposed to be deported in 2019. However, he claimed he would face severe penalties if he was sent back to his home country and demanded asylum. The bureaucracy, for some reason, awarded him this status. The second Trump administration corrected this error of the first admin by sending him to Bukele’s prison. We shouldn’t want this person in the first place. A gang member’s fears of punishment shouldn’t be legitimate grounds for asylum.

These actions are defensible. They also deter future illegal migrants and encourage the ones already here to self-deport. If they don’t want to end up in a Salvadoran maximum-security prison, it would be wise to not come here or leave on your own terms. A huge part of the battle against illegal immigration is raising the stakes. If illegal migrants think they can waltz in and never face any consequences, they will come in by the millions–which is what happened under Biden. But if they think they might be jailed with gangbangers from all over Latin America, they will reconsider. Deterrence is key, and the deportations to El Salvador serve an important purpose.

The same goes for the memes the White House is putting out. These put a light-hearted touch on what are otherwise harsh measures. Giving permission to the public to laugh and cheer over these removals normalizes it. It can’t all be grim and intimidating, at least not to actual Americans. To convey that dark impression supports the Left’s campaign to scare the public. It’s necessary to detoxify proper immigration enforcement. Turning it into a meme makes it less scary and fortifies the administration’s position. It also counters the left-wing narrative that deportations are wrong and evil. The memes defy that dogma, insisting they’re good and right and funny.

Sob stories can manipulate the public into believing idiotic notions. Just remember how George Floyd made a majority of Americans back Black Lives Matter. It’s why it’s so important to counter these media narratives. We want mass deportations. We want America to be inhospitable to illegal immigrants. And we want the rule of law respected. To accomplish this, it will require harsh measures that may make some queasy. Not everything will be perfect. A strong stomach is needed to make America great again. It’s imperative to not buy into these deportation “horror” stories. To do so undermines our own position.

You can either stand for a serious immigration policy, or cry over the Venezuelan hairdresser and the “Maryland father.” The choice is yours.