Rantz: Seattle media actively helping radical activists disrupt ICE operations
Feb 12, 2025, 5:00 AM | Updated: 9:46 am
In Lynden, WA, 22-year-old Guatemalan Rubi Jeronimo Cruz is detained by ICE. He has already been convicted for DUI with reckless driving, and has been charged with rape of a child. (Photo courtesy of ICE)
(Photo courtesy of ICE)
Left-wing media, including The Seattle Times and The Tri-City Herald, is playing public relations firm for radical open-border groups. Outlets appear to be interested in helping activist groups directly or indirectly disrupt U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids against dangerous, criminal illegal immigrants.
The Seattle Times published a Tri-City Herald piece that reads like an activist manual for obstructing ICE operations in Washington. Rather than expose the serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants who have repeatedly defied U.S. law, the papers amplify the voices of those working to make ICE’s job harder.
Washingtonians, and ICE agents, deserve better.
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Dangerous illegal immigrants face ICE raids. Why is left-wing media protecting them?
For years, the progressive narrative has painted ICE as a villain, conveniently ignoring the violent and repeat offenders the agency removes from our communities. And yet, while activists claim they’re standing up for the “vulnerable,” they’re really protecting criminals who have no right to be here in the first place.
Among the recent arrests ICE made in Washington was a 47-year-old Mexican citizen charged with lewd acts with a child under 14 and sexual battery. Another was a 51-year-old Guatemalan convicted of disorderly conduct and assault. He had been previously removed twice to his home country. These aren’t innocent people simply looking for a better life — they are repeat offenders with serious criminal histories who pose a direct threat to public safety.
But that doesn’t matter to groups like the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN), which The Seattle Times and The Tri-City Herald give an uncritical platform.
WAISN, along with other radical groups, provides step-by-step instructions on how to interfere with ICE operations, including filming officers and instructing people not to cooperate. The message? Helping deport criminals is bad; helping criminals avoid consequences is good. Hey, members should run as Democrats for the state legislature. They’d fit right in.
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This isn’t journalism, it’s reprinting press releases
What’s worse is that the media isn’t just reporting on these activists — it’s amplifying and legitimizing them.
The article tells bystanders to actively question ICE agents in the middle of a raid, while taking notes on the agent’s identities and the cars, with license plates, they’re driving.
“If officers get too close to you, state that you have stepped back and repeat you are exercising your right to record. You want to remain calm, but speak firmly,” The Tri-City Herald and The Seattle Times explained.
Nowhere in the articles is there an acknowledgment that ICE’s work actually protects law-abiding people, including legal immigrants. Nowhere is there an admission that the people ICE arrests often have long rap sheets, multiple deportations and a demonstrated disregard for the law. Instead, the paper plays into the tired narrative that any immigration enforcement is inherently cruel.
This isn’t journalism; it’s activism. These aren’t news reports; they’re press releases.
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Seattle media could play an important role. Right now? They’re publicists
The media’s role should be to inform the public, not to serve as a propaganda arm for groups that want to abolish immigration enforcement altogether. And yet publications like The Seattle Times refuse to challenge the narrative, never asking why these activist groups are so determined to shield criminals.
We should be asking: Why are these groups comfortable allowing repeat DUI offenders, sex offenders, and domestic abusers to stay in our communities? Why does left-wing media refuse to acknowledge the real victims here — the families that suffer when criminals are allowed to remain on our streets?
ICE isn’t the enemy. Criminals are. But in the twisted worldview of the Radical Left, enforcing the law is somehow more offensive than breaking it.
Related: Twice-deported illegal immigrant arrested for murder in Auburn
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