Legacy Media Goes From Ignoring To Endorsing Illegal Immigrant Crime

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent,” Adam Smith wrote in his treatise on moral sentiments. Legacy media publications are especially guilty of this. Nothing pulls on their heartstrings quite like an illegal migrant convicted of a heinous crime. 

“The Trump Administration is deporting people to countries they have no ties to, where many are being detained indefinitely or forcibly returned to the places they fled,” writes Sarah Stillman for The New Yorker. What kind of people are being deported, exactly? The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a handy reference guide to the five “criminal illegal aliens” deported to Eswatini in July. The men’s convictions include: child rape, murder, robbery, second-degree murder and burglary, first-degree murder, and more. 

Stillman notes that men, none of whom are native to Eswatini, “had lived in the U.S. for many years” and “were detained in a maximum-security prison, without clear justification” after arriving in Eswatini. 

The deportees’ length of residency in the U.S. is not really relevant. Imagine a hobo telling a homeowner, “But I’ve squatted in your house for years now! You can’t just kick me out.” Now imagine that hobo had been convicted of a serious, violent crime. (RELATED: Legacy Media Turns On Waterworks For Another Criminal Migrant)

Orville Etoria, 62, had lived in New York for nearly 50 years, according to Stillman. When he was about 33, he was “convicted of second-degree murder, for shooting a man in a leather-goods store, and received a sentence of twenty-five years to life. Eventually, an immigration judge issued an order of removal against him, meaning that he could be deported once he got out of prison.” 

Murder.

He literally murdered someone. https://t.co/XuPsgzURls

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 25, 2025

But, Stillman points out, he got a bachelor’s degree in prison! He worked at a homeless shelter! He cared for his ailing mother! 

He’ll be a boon to his home country of Jamaica, no doubt, to which he was reportedly repatriated from Eswatini. The Eswatini government is working towards repatriating the other detainees to their countries of origin, an Eswatini government spokeswoman told the BBC. 

“Nascimento Blair returned home in shackles,” The New York Times (NYT) begins their profile of a convicted kidnapper. Blair was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2005 for the crime and issued a final order of removal in 2008, according to DHS. Blair also dealt marijuana, starting shortly after he “began meeting other Jamaicans, including some who sold marijuana.” 

But, the NYT points out, he started a business! He took classes at Columbia University! He cared for an ailing fiancée!

Are you starting to notice a pattern? 

If I had a nickel for each time in the last 48 hours a prestige New York media outlet ran a sympathetic story on someone facing immigration enforcement who turned out to have *literally killed someone in the United States*, I’d have two nickels! https://t.co/utssXBKBNc

— Bernard Stanford ✡︎ (@stanfordNYC) November 25, 2025

These articles read like testimonies from character witnesses. Great emphasis is placed on humanizing the convicted criminals — interviews with their families, personal anecdotes, photoshoots. Recall the infamous “Maryland man.” Less emphasis is placed on humanizing their victims. 

There are migrants who truly qualify as victims. Children and young people smuggled over the border, often for the purposes of sex trafficking. Reporting at the height of Biden-era open border madness, The Free Press called sex trafficking “America’s Fastest-Growing Criminal Enterprise.” 

Sometimes the victim and his victimizer are given precisely equal billing. 

“Two Men. One Identity. They Both Paid the Price,” reads a NYT headline. The article follows Dan Kluver, an American, who was defrauded for over a decade by Romeo Perez-Bravo, an illegal migrant of Guatemalan origin.

Perez-Bravo reportedly caused Kluver to suffer a suspended driver’s license and thousands of dollars in garnishments from the Internal Revenue Service (because Perez-Bravo reported his income under Kluver’s name, it pushed Kluver into a higher tax bracket.)

Perez-Bravo’s foray into identity theft began shortly after he illegally entered the country, according to the NYT.

While angling for a job at a turkey-processing company, “a friend who worked at the factory introduced Perez-Bravo to someone who sold sets of names, IDs and Social Security numbers for as little as $250.”

The NYT mentions Perez-Bravo belongs to a text messaging group started by the pastor of an “immigrant church” in which participants warn each other about Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the area.

Why is the New York Times doing a photo shoot for an illegal alien who stole American identities, got DUIs, and was repeatedly deported and illegally reentered the country?

And for the record, he did not “borrow” identities. He stole them. pic.twitter.com/GQuEtOhCxR

— Abigail Jackson 🇺🇸 (@abigailmarone) November 24, 2025

Here’s another through line across these stories. Migrants maintain tight-knit networks across the United States. Remember Blair’s marijuana connections? Evidently, many migrants help each other evade law enforcement and, as in the case of Somali scammers in Minnesota, defraud the taxpayer. (RELATED: Somalis Reportedly Scamming Minnesota Blind — And Allegedly Sending Some Funds To Islamic Terrorists)

Perez-Bravo racked up “a string of D.U.I.s and other minor offenses,” in his first years in America, according to the NYT. He was deported three times. He kept coming back, and he kept purchasing new IDs, according to the NYT. 

In 2022, Perez-Bravo was involved in a traffic accident. He reportedly hit a grandfather and his 9-year-old granddaughter riding a motorized tricycle, allegedly injuring the girl and killing the man. 

Perez-Bravo “stayed on the scene, praying and cooperating with the police as he handed over a license and registration for Dan Kluver. He was cleared of any wrongdoing. The crash was ruled an accident. But the victim’s family had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit — with Kluver listed as the defendant.” 

But … Perez-Bravo cooks at church barbecues! He does family puzzles! He has five kids! 

Perez-Bravo reportedly broke the law for decades. He showed less than zero regard for the wellbeing of the real Kluver, a law-abiding American. If Perez-Bravo isn’t a prime candidate for deportation, who is? 

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC