News outlets in the United States have developed a habit of representing bad policy decisions made by the Obama administration as binding law. In particular, they love to portray the Department of Homeland Security’s “sensitive locations” policies as some kind of civil rights bedrock. But, as FAIR has repeatedly pointed out, those policies were put in place to protect agents as they perform their duties, not to create “safe zones” where illegal aliens receive a de facto amnesty.
NPR seems especially dedicated to perpetuating the “safe zones” myth. In a misleading piece that is highly critical of the Border Patrol, the taxpayer funded news outlet claims: “Border Patrol Arrests Parents While Infant Awaits Serious Operation.” That headline implies that the Border Patrol kept an infant from receiving needed medical treatment, simply because his parents are illegal aliens.
Only, that isn’t what happened: Oscar and Irma Sanchez are illegal aliens living in Texas. Their son, Isaac, needed surgery to correct a digestive condition. But the local hospital couldn’t perform the operation. And the only route to a hospital that could do the surgery passed through a permanent Border Patrol checkpoint.
NPR claims that a nurse at the local hospital reported the family to the Border Patrol, because agents showed up in the waiting room. Although, it is much more likely that a diligent hospital staff member called U.S. Customs and Border Protection to ensure that the ambulance transferring Isaac wasn’t delayed at the checkpoint.
In any case, the Border Patrol arrived… and escorted the family to the surgical hospital in Corpus Christi. Then the Border Patrolmen… waited patiently while the required surgery was performed. Afterward… they let the Sanchez family return to their North Brownsville home.
By NPR’s own account, Little Isaac got the medical attention he needed. The Border Patrol was both professional and humane. And the Sanchez family remains in the U.S., pending a hearing before the Immigration Court. So what’s the gripe? In a word, Borders.
NPR believes in a borderless world. It simply can’t conceive of the notion that illegal migration is actually a violation of the law. Therefore, it’s willing to demonize the Border Patrol and portray the United States as an oppressive nation with a draconian law enforcement system, in order to further its no borders narrative. And that narrative includes the bizarre notion that people who are unlawfully present in the U.S. have unqualified immunity from the law in certain “sensitive locations.”
Of course, the important question is the one that NPR never asks: why did the Sanchez family violate the law to live in the U.S.? One suspects that compassionate law enforcement officers, quality medical care, a fair system of courts, and decent jobs are in short supply wherever they hail from. It’s too bad the mainstream media doesn’t understand that creating zones of amnesty throughout the U.S. erodes the very peace and prosperity that attract immigrants to our shores in the first place.