Cal Thomas: The wrong narrative

Cal Thomas, Tribune Content Agency on Jan 27, 2026

If you follow what presents itself as “reporting” these days you have likely heard about a 5-year-old boy in Minneapolis who was used as “bait” to get his father, who had abandoned him, to return so he could be arrested. Some claimed the child had been “kidnapped” by ICE.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) rushed to the cameras to promote the “bait” and “kidnapped” narrative. Hillary Clinton said ICE was using children as “pawns” and Kamala Harris also repeated the “bait” label. The women on “The View” echoed the same theme.

Their talking points were wrong. As explained by ICE and Border Patrol, the father of the boy is in the country illegally. They said he had left his son in a car while trying to avoid arrest. ICE officers took the child to a safe place until they were able to detain the father and re-unite the two.

Reporters rarely question the promoters of a false narrative whether they would like to apologize for what they said. That may be because many of them agree that ICE is wrong to arrest people with criminal convictions and previous deportation orders and get them out of Minneapolis and the country. You can’t argue with the results. Some are tying the deportation of violent criminals to the reduction in murders nationwide.

Following the shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and US citizen, on Saturday, Minneapolis officials were quick to establish a new narrative even though they didn’t have “all the facts.” Homeland Security Kristi Noem later said the man was armed with a gun and two magazines and intended to kill ICE agents, although bystanders’ video contradicts that claim.

False narratives are not new. Recall “Hands up, don’t shoot” (Michael Brown/Ferguson, Mo. 2014), the Russian collusion hoax, Trump is a Russian agent, the Hunter Biden laptop, Black Lives Matter and some of its corrupt leaders, and so many more.

This is the problem with false narratives. If you hate President Trump and everything his administration is doing, you look for anything – whether true or false – to lower his approval numbers. That seems to be working as most polls show voters disapprove of ICE’s tactics and the president. Why wouldn’t they when the media are virtually united in false narratives?

Border Patrol and the president have been displaying pictures of some of the worst criminals they are arresting and deporting. The media have largely ignored that important part of the story. According to a study by the conservative Media Research Center, "In the 10 days following the shooting of Renee Good, ABC, NBC and CBS were overwhelmingly negative about ICE. The study found 68 negative soundbites about ICE, compared to only five positive clips as ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts were negative 93 percent of the time.”

I have not seen a reporter ask an anti-ICE protester whether they are OK with rapists, murderers and pedophiles staying in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration needs to do what is known in television as counter programming. This might include allowing some of the victims of these criminals to speak. Bring some of those awaiting deportation before reporters and read off their records. That might be more effective at influencing public opinion than displaying their photographs.

It doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that the goal of these demonstrations might be to help Democrats regain a congressional majority so they can again impeach the president, even though the likelihood of convicting him would be about the same as the previous impeachments. For them it’s all politics. For Homeland Security it’s about getting bad guys off the streets and out of the country.

Let the Democrats run on a platform of defending violent criminals and see how that works for them. As for the wrong narrative that has been promoted about the 5-year-old boy, it again proves the truth of the saying: “A lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its boots."

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Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).