"They gladly invite pseudo-filmmakers some federal government workers, others conservative influencers or pro-Trump reporters to embed during raids so they can capture every tamale lady agents slam onto the sidewalk, every protester they pelt with pepper balls, every tear gas canister used to clear away pesky activists. From that mayhem comes slickly produced videos that buttress the Trump administration's claim that everyone involved in the push to boot illegal immigrants from the U.S. is a hero worthy of cinematic love."
"But not everything that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and its sister agencies do shows up in their approved rivers of reels. Their propagandists aren't highlighting the story of Jaime Alanis Garcia, a Mexican farmworker who fell 30 feet to his death in Camarillo this summer while trying to escape one of the largest immigration raids in Southern California in decades."
Trump administration immigration enforcement teams stage media-friendly, embedded raids that produce polished videos portraying agents as cinematic heroes. Those videos often omit fatal incidents linked to operations: Jaime Alanis Garcia fell 30 feet escaping a Camarillo raid; Ismael Ayala-Uribe died in a Victorville hospital after weeks in ICE custody; Josue Castro Rivera and Carlos Roberto Montoya were killed by highway traffic while fleeing in Virginia and Monrovia; Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was shot while trying to flee two agents in suburban Chicago. More than twenty people died in 2025 while caught up in ICE operations, the deadliest year for the agency in two decades. The Department of Homeland Security publicly called the incidents tragic while assigning blame to factors other than the agency.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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