Don’t Let the Media Make up Your Mind on State of the Union

BY DIANE DIMOND

Following President Trump’s first State of the Union, I was left shaking my head at some journalists’ analysis of what was said. Especially troublesome to see from my crime-and-justice perch was reporters tying Trump’s mention of deadly MS-13 gang activity to all undocumented immigrants.

The Huffington Post’s coverage of the issue was tagged with the label “Hate Speech” and included this line about the President’s comments: “His comparison between MS-13 and the millions of undocumented immigrants in America — including hundreds of thousands of young people known as “Dreamers” — prompted swift rebuke from Democrats.”

HuffPost added a supporting quote from the junior senator from California, Democrat Kamala Harris. “MS-13 is an example of some of the worst of criminal gang behavior,” she said. “To equate that with Dreamers and DACA was completely irresponsible, and it was scapegoating, and it was fearmongering, and it was wrong.”

Fact check: Not once did the president equate all “Dreamers,” those recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, with gang members. Don’t let the media put untrue thoughts in your head. The closest Trump came was when he said, “Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors.” In other words, some MS-13 members gamed our system to gain entry in the U.S.

In all the breathlessly critical immigration-centric coverage, there was no mention of something President Trump did say about his immigration proposals and the DACA program. “The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age — that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration,” he said.

Ignoring that, one reporter zeroed in on the president’s apparent audacity in daring to even mention the Salvadoran-led MS-13 gang.

“One of the things he said … is that he wants to have the country set aside differences,” ABC senior White House correspondent Cecilia Vega said in solemn tones. “And (then he) went on to talk about undocumented immigrants as MS-13 gang members, demonizing them.”

Gee, if you can’t demonize a murderous gang, what can you safely demonize? By ABC’s line of thinking, one is not allowed to criticize an immigrant who commits violent crimes against Americans, or even MS-13 members, for fear of being labeled a racist against all Hispanics.

But Sen. Marco Rubio, a one-time Trump presidential challenger, said after the State of the Union speech that to refrain from targeting MS-13 would be “like saying, you know, that you can’t criticize the mafia because they’re Italian-American.” This isn’t racist. It is a fact.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews seemed to chide the president for having invited the parents of MS-13 victims to the speech. “The idea of being a parent, losing a kid, a child, and then having to go sit there before the American people in agony, I don’t know,” Matthews said, shaking his head in disapproval. “Maybe there was some educational purpose in it but I think it could have been done differently.”

Matthews failed to mention that the parents of slain New York teenagers Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were not forced to attend. Rather, these parents volunteered to come to help the nation put a face to the pain caused by MS-13. This type of media coverage, and other reports focusing on the origins of MS-13 or the suggestion that America’s support for the Salvadoran civil war in the ’80s somehow created the gang and caused it to flourish here completely miss the larger point.

MS-13 is currently operating in at least 40 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. It is one of the most brutal, bloodthirsty gangs to ever roam American soil, and it recruits new members — both male and female — in U.S. schools with predominately immigrant populations. The gang’s core motto, according to the Department of Justice, is “Mata, viola, controla,” which translates to “Kill, rape, control.”

As DOJ official Robert Hur put it, “They seek to live up to this motto through truly shocking acts of violence designed to instill fear: vicious machete attacks, execution-style gunshots, gang rape and human trafficking.” The FBI reports that MS-13 has also left its mark via home invasions, kidnapping, robbery and carjacking.
Yet to speak of MS-13 is racist? To mention these marauding criminals while discussing America’s safety is to paint all young immigrants with the gang brush? I am offended by this line of thinking. And you should be, too.
As Sen. Rubio also said: “MS-13 does not go into Beverly Hills. MS-13 is in communities where other immigrants are living, and that is who they prey on, and that is who they harm.”

Why the self-proclaimed protectors of racial integrity can’t see that restricting conversation about gangs and their victims is counterproductive I’ll never understand. If we can’t talk about it, we can’t fix it. Partisan parsing of words seems so senseless when people are being victimized and murdered in their own communities. When does concern over that, and finding ways to stop it, trump political posturing?

Rockland resident Diane Dimond is a syndicated columnist, author, regular guest on TV news programs, and correspondent for Newsweek/Daily Beast. Visit her at www.DianeDimond.net or reach her via email Diane@DianeDimond.net

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