Thread by @matt_cam

1/ Trump admin is actively working to sentence ~200K innocent Salvadorans now legally in US to death. Let's talk about everything wrong with this rank @ICEgov propaganda from @CBSThisMorning & the complicity of these "journalists" in that plan. #SaveTPS

cbsnews.com/news/ms-13-gan…

2/ Let's start with that headline. Why would a crackdown on gangs be "controversial"? Gangs are bad, and few worse than MS-13. But @CBSThisMorning doesn't address it in the story at all, leaving reasonable people to assume that there is no rational counterpoint. But there is.

3/ If you watch story closely, there are threads that an actual journalist would have not only tugged, but yanked free until something snapped. But as the anchor notes at the end, @margbrennan had "amazing access" to @ICEgov operation. Clearly that access came at a steep price.

4/ @ICEgov "knows" that the 20-year-old Salvadoran target is a gang member because they have a "photo of him actually flashing gang signs." I have seen this play out in immigration court so many times. I live in a Salvadoran community. And let me tell you:

5/ The "human intelligence" @ICEgov and local cops do on this is basically just trolling FB. Is one of your 3K friends a gang member? Have you posted a gang-related meme or music video? Congratulations, you're now a sworn member of MS-13. I call it "the humint centipede."

6/ I could do a few more pages on the idiocy of the "gang analysis" I've seen from @ICEgov. This kid is probably a "gang member" like @margbrennan is a "journalist." But let's move on to the rotten heart of this @ICEgov snow job.

7/ @margbrennan watches 12 armed @ICEgov agents kick down this unarmed 20-year-old's door and pull him out without a warrant. She notes in passing that they don't have a warrant. But doesn't, y'know, ASK about that. Cool, cool.

8/ They get their guy, along with another kid who happens to be on site. Is he a gang member? No. He's a "gang associate." What does that mean?

9/ The officer then explains to @margbrennan, a person who purports to be a journalist, that "gang associate" is a thing that @ICEgov says in their reports so that immigration judges will hold teenagers without bond. Cool. Very cool. Totally normal law enforcement. Carry on!

10/ "So his known crime is entering the country illegally?"
"Correct."
"But that's... all you definitely know?"
"That's correct. The purpose of classifying him as... a gang associate is because once he goes in front of an immigration judge, we don't want him to get bail..."

11/ This is the @ICEgov equivalent of video of a local cop planting drugs on a suspect. A huge gotcha. But reported here with no context. No interview, let alone a quote, from an immigrant-led rights org. It's #ICE TV.

12/ In apparent exchange for this tepid ridealong, @ICEgov director Thomas Homan than gives @margbrennan an interview. It's not really worth mentioning other than he repeats a few things nearly verbatim from a recent appearance at the Heritage Foundation.

c-span.org/video/?435827-…

13/ No tough questions. No mention of simple fact that vast majority of @ICEgov detainees since Trump have had nothing more than unlicensed operation on their records, and no gang ties. @margbrennan just lets him talk. But here's why all of this matters:

14/ The Trump administration is likely within weeks of announcing the fate of #TemporaryProtectedStatus for #ElSalvador. #TPS just what it says on the tin. It's basically #DACA for folks from certain countries. #TPS #Nicaragua was just terminated. #Honduras is next.

15/ Nearly 200K Salvadorans now in the US have #TPS. It's one of the few ways that anyone from #ElSalvador can gain any legal immigration status at all. Set to expire in March, and an announcement on it could come any day. Like #DACA, it requires a clean record & no gang ties.

16/ Jeff Sessions asked that local cops send in criminal recs for Haitians in their communities. This overtly racist request used to justify sunset for #TPS #Haiti only 7 yrs after quake. Nowhere do #BlackLivesMatter less than in immigration enforcement.

usnews.com/news/politics/…

17/ Just as Trump admin actively worked to associate Haitians with criminality, it is now conducting a PR campaign to make "Salvadoran" equivalent to "MS-13." And @CBSThisMorning proved itself more than willing to help this racist crusade.

18/ To be clear: MS-13 are terrorists. They are the reason many Salvadorans are in the US at all, and why nearly all of them are in mortal fear of return. They rape/murder/extort at will, and spread their awful virus by recruiting their child soldiers as young as 7 or 8.

19/ And it's personal for me: we have had real problems with MS-13 in my neighborhood, and many of my clients & their kids have been threatened/harmed. (FYI @sdooling & @phillipWGBH have both done actual journalism on this recently if @margbrennan is looking for inspiration.)

20/ So I'm not trying to "protect" gang members here, #tcot pals. I'm standing up for the more than 1 million Salvadorans in the US who aren't gang members, and the 200K innocent folks who anxiously awaiting a decision on their future in this country within the next few weeks.

21/ @CBSThisMorning and @margbrennan are actively playing into Trump admin's propaganda campaign against decent, hardworking families who have already endured so much. You now have a moral obligation to balance this garbage piece by telling stories of average #TPS recipients.

22/ Oh, and BTW: #ElSalvador is what *we* made it. 150+ yrs of US military, economic, & political intervention hollowed the country out and left it ripe for MS-13 to rule. Terminating #TPS would be a death sentence for thousands, and an abdication of our moral responsibilities.

23/ For more on the astonishing abuses of due process and common decency perpetrated by @ICEgov against Salvadoran kids in the name of "gang ties," here's my piece in @thebafflermag earlier this year

thebaffler.com/outbursts/stra…

24/ I know it's hard to keep track of Trump's openly-racist campaigns, but this one is about to put 200K people into imminent danger. *Please* check in to be sure that your federal reps are willing to do what it takes to #SaveTPS. (And don't watch @CBSThisMorning.) Thanks!