In late August, the Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) caught CNN in a massive lie and called it out for pushing misinformation in a desperate attempt to turn Americans against the administration’s campaign of mass deportations of illegal aliens, supported by mass raids on worksites and similar areas where illegal aliens congregate.
In this case, the network claimed in a headline that Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) had arrested two firefighters as they tried to fight a wildfire in Washington state, a claim that DHS took to X to note was an outright lie that misrepresented the facts about what the two illegals were up to when arrested.
For reference, the CNN headline from late August that kicked off the fight claimed, very misleadingly, “Border Patrol arrests 2 firefighters for being in the country illegally as they battled Washington’s biggest wildfire.” DHS, to defend its point, included a screenshot of that false headline in its tweet on August 29; the headline has since been edited by CNN to avoid the term “firefighters”.
The department then proceeded to dismantle the claim and describe what actually happened in the incident, first noting that the two illegal aliens who were apprehended by Border Patrol agents were not illegal aliens. DHS said, on that point, “The two illegal aliens apprehended were NOT firefighters.”
Continuing, the DHS tweet went on to explain that the wildfire response was unimpacted by the arrests and that the two illegals were members of a work crew that was chopping firewood elsewhere, not even fighting the fire. It said, “The two contracted work crews questioned on the day of their arrests were not even assigned to actively fight the fire; they were there in a support role, cutting logs into firewood. The firefighting response remained uninterrupted the entire time.”
Further, DHS explained that actual firefighters, particularly the ones who were actively engaged in fighting the wildfire, weren’t even questioned by Border Patrol, much less interfered with by the agents. It said, “No active firefighters were even questioned, and U.S. Border Patrol’s actions did not prevent or interfere with any personnel actively engaged in firefighting efforts.”
Concluding, the tweet noted that CNN had once again been exposed as doing the typical media thing and lying about the anti-illegal immigration effort so as to make Americans more amenable to open borders. It said, “The mainstream media is once again spreading fake news about federal law enforcement efforts.”
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A bevy of commenters and commentators chimed in to roast CNN and support Border Patrol. One such poster said, in a quote tweet of the DHS post about the fake headline, “CNN caught lying again. When will ‘new outlets’ be held responsible for the outright lies they broadcast to the masses?”
Similarly, a commenter on the DHS post explained, “@CNN is, at this point, actively creating disinformation and this must be a violation of their privileges. Revoke their license” and “Will there be repercussions for the contractor who contracted illegal aliens? This problem will not be solved if the employers do not face some sort of penalty.”
Watch President Trump comment on removing illegal aliens from Social Security here: