NYT Columnist Calls Trump's Illegal Alien Crime Stories 'Bogus,' So DHS Sets Him Straight
David Brooks should keep up with The Times.
The New York Times columnist — one of few “conservatives” in the Gray Lady’s stable of otherwise left-to-far-left herd of opinion writers — took to PBS “NewsHour” last week to brand as “bogus” President Donald Trump’s descriptions of crimes committed by illegal aliens.
While complimenting Trump’s State of the Union address overall, Brooks apparently couldn’t resist a Times-style denigration of one of the more powerful parts of Trump’s speech.
“I actually thought it was his most effective speech as president,” Brooks said. “He had some of the stuff he has always had, which is these bogus stories of crimes that immigrants have committed.”
So the Department of Homeland Security had to set him straight:
Hi, @nytdavidbrooks. Saw your interview, where you said POTUS had “bogus stories of crimes that immigrants have committed.” Not true. Let me introduce you to a few. I’m sad to say there are many, many tragic stories of lives destroyed and lost due to crimes by illegal aliens.
— Heather Swift, DHS spokesperson (@SpoxDHS) February 10, 2020
“Hi, @nytdavidbrooks,” DHS spokeswoman Heather Swift wrote in a Twitter post Monday.
“Saw your interview, where you said POTUS had ‘bogus stories of crimes that immigrants have committed.’ Not true. Let me introduce you to a few. I’m sad to say there are many, many tragic stories of lives destroyed and lost due to crimes by illegal aliens.”
Swift then cited the case of Reeaz Khan, an immigrant from Guyana charged with the Jan. 6 murder and sexual assault of a 92-year-old woman in the New York City borough of Queens.
From your own paper, the story @POTUS shared in the SOTU. A 92 year old woman was savagely raped and murdered by an illegal alien NYC refused to turn him over to @ICEgov after he was arrested for assault. https://t.co/EOHhQW5f72
— Heather Swift, DHS spokesperson (@SpoxDHS) February 10, 2020
Khan had been arrested after allegedly beating up his father in November.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it had issued a detainer requesting that he be turned over for possible deportation, The Times reported, though the New York City Police Department denied it had received the request.
ICE actually posted a copy of its detainer request on Twitter to prove its side of the argument, and considering the NYPD has a documented history of ignoring ICE detainers, it’s easy to believe the federal agency in this case.
But that’s actually beside the point. No one is arguing that the victim, a woman named Maria Fuentes, was not sexually assaulted and killed.
The claim there was a crime was not “bogus,” no matter what Brooks seems to think. (There’s also little doubt Khan is the guilty party, since he admitted to the sexual assault, The Times reported.)
That was one case Trump specifically cited in his State of the Union speech and, as Swift noted, Brooks’ own newspaper had covered the crime, so The Times columnist didn’t really have reason to doubt it.
Swift added a couple more tweets for good measure, backing up Trump’s contention that the country has a very real problem with illegal aliens who are not only in the country illegally, but have actually been arrested.
In a sane country, they would have been kept behind bars, but in certain “sanctuary” jurisdictions, where liberal elected officials have seen fit to defy federal laws, they were let loose to prey on the innocent population again.
Another horrible example in NY/NJ where two child rapists were released in New York and New Jersey after they refused to hold the suspects in jail for ICE. https://t.co/TyV0CcWOn1
— Heather Swift, DHS spokesperson (@SpoxDHS) February 10, 2020
An illegal immigrant targeted a woman he previously raped once he was released from custody in Oklahoma after authorities failed to honor an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer https://t.co/e99dr4vAFp
— Heather Swift, DHS spokesperson (@SpoxDHS) February 10, 2020
While nobody gets to be a columnist for The Times by being stupid, Brooks’ acumen has always been suspect.
Besides being a crushingly boring writer (starting his columns is a lot easier than finishing them), his powers of deduction aren’t necessarily the best.
This is the “conservative,” remember, who was so impressed in 2005 by the crease in then-Sen. Barack Obama’s pants that he predicted Obama was not only going to be the president someday, he’d be a “very good president.”
So give Brooks points for the presidential prediction, but since Obama’s presidency — from a “conservative” point of view — is better described as “disastrous” than “very good,” Brooks clearly has some foresight issues.
But no one can be expected to be perfect when it comes to seeing the future. For Brooks to have problems seeing the present, when it’s being documented by the very journalistic institution he works for, is a different matter.
There was literally nothing “bogus” about Trump’s description of crimes committed by illegal aliens in that State of the Union address. (Not even the nit-picking liberals at FactCheck.org came up with any complaints about that part of the speech.)
It’s unclear why Brooks — a Times “conservative” who has been known to insult conservatives in his work — chose that particular line of attack on Trump’s State of the Union. Anyone who follows the issue of crime and “sanctuary” jurisdictions knows that the situation is a disgrace to the idea of a nation supposedly governed by laws, not men.
But it is clear that he was so far off base the Department of Homeland Security had to step in to set him straight — and direct him to his own newspaper’s coverage.
It wasn’t the president’s words that were “bogus” here.
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