Commentary
I recently wrote about headline writers who appear to be intentionally using their position on a paper’s staff to criticize the Trump administration, when their headline wrongly depicts the content of the article.
It’s bad enough that the column by the Arizona Republic’s lightweight journalist Elvia Diaz is slanted to favor her Hispanic community, it was certainly not read by the headline writer, nor checked by the editor.
Diaz began with “President Trump is finally going after employers in his immigration crackdown,” adding, “guess where the mighty wrath of the government landed? On a taco truck in south Phoenix.” Cute, eh?
The headline read, “Forget cartels, ICE busted a Phoenix taco truck instead,” however, had the headline writer read beyond the lead paragraph, he or she would have learned that ICE agents had also investigated the brick-and-mortar shop of El Taco Loko, and the owner’s home.
Further, he would have noted that the owner was taken into custody facing federal charges of knowingly hiring undocumented workers, harboring ‘illegal aliens,’ crossing the border illegally himself and possessing a firearm.
He could have written something like, “Illegal taco shop proprietor arrested for hiring, harboring illegals, firearm possession.” But busting a taco truck sounds silly and was written to make Trump look bad.
Republic columnist Phil Boas, whose conservative opinions occasionally get into print, wrote a piece about the illegal lawbreakers published alongside Diaz’s column.
He wrote of an indictment of an Arizona couple who, along with two Mexican nationals, ran an elaborate scheme to hire and harbor cheap immigrant labor for five restaurants located in Arizona and Alabama. Federal prosecutors have accused the four of creating a business to recruit and funnel undocumented labor to restaurants, where they were paid below minimum wages with no pay for overtime.
The indictment accuses the Arizona couple of telling managers of a Sedona restaurant to fire U.S. citizen employees to create openings for undocumented workers from Mexico to reduce labor costs.
Democrats frequently like to say ‘American citizens won’t do the work migrants do’ but as in the above story, citizens are not being recruited, and they do demand a minimum wage and overtime pay.
Incidentally, the headline on Boas’ column cited the raid on the Arizona couple “is proof that ignoring the law hurt us all.”
While Diaz criticized the Trump administration for flexing its muscles on the “real enablers of undocumented labor – a taco joint in south Phoenix,” flexes her bleeding-heart liberal position to claim, “Trump will never go after the big guys in posh resorts and restaurants unless they are in Democrat-run cities.”
ICE agents continue to perform the law enforcement duties they have been assigned to do, but leftist protestors continue to block their attempt to round up criminal migrants. Those who illegally crossed the border also face criminal charges.
May God continue to bless the United States and protect ICE agents and their families.
