Fake news: CNN accuses ICE of ripping baby away from nursing mother – who wasn’t nursing

According to ICE, some media outlets are now trying to lie about a woman breastfeeding a child in order to thwart immigration law.

It all began with a Jackson Clarion-Ledger story last Thursday, with the headline: “ICE raid separates 4-month-old baby from breastfeeding mom,” referring to an anonymous illegal alien detained among the 680 netted in the large ICE raid in Mississippi on August 7. In prose full of sympathy for illegal immigrants and for treating them as if they came here legally, the Clarion-Ledger quoted an anonymous dad saying he had to bottle-feed a four-month-old baby girl separated from her mother. It reported this as fact without citing any sources and without investigating the claim.

Throughout the past few days, the media ran with the claim as their latest poster child for undermining immigration enforcement. Rachel Maddow frantically tweeted it out.

Then, yesterday, CNN ran an article with the name of the mother at the center of this allegation, Maria Domingo-Garcia. CNN reported the story as if the illegal immigrants were as American as apple pie, simply going to work one day and being grabbed by stormtroopers for no reason.

Once again, the media ate out of the hands of unethical immigration attorneys. CNN obtained the following statement from the attorney:

"ICE is, once again, lying," said Ybarra Maldonado. "She said nobody's asked her -- not even one time -- if she's been breastfeeding."

"Can you imagine having a 4-month-old baby and being ripped away from that baby, unsure of who is taking care of her?" he said. "She's devastated."

Manzanarez added Domingo-Garcia told her that detention center staff has asked her only if she has a 4-month-old daughter, to which she replied "yes."

I began to get suspicious when the CNN article mentioned that an ICE official said this mother was specifically asked by a medical examiner if she was breastfeeding and answered, “No.” Immigration lawyers regularly go to sympathetic reporters and fabricate stories in order to get the media to essentially nullify the rule of law with virtue-signaling that often turns out to be based on false facts. Well, according to ICE, that is exactly what happened here.

Not only was Domingo asked whether she was nursing on the day she was detained at the facility, to which she answered negatively, it turns out she was screened again yesterday. “Pursuant to subsequent media reports that falsely alleged Ms. Domingo-Garcia was being detained despite being a nursing mother, an ICE Health Services Corps nurse practitioner conducted an additional medical examination of Ms. Domingo-Garcia, which verified today she is not lactating,” said ICE spokesman Bryan Cox in a statement to CR last night.

That means she was screened again on August 19 to confirm she is not lactating.

“Unlawfully present Mexican national Maria Domingo-Garcia was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the execution of federal criminal search warrants in Mississippi August 7. All ICE detainees receive medical, dental and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility; that screening includes a woman being asked if she is breast feeding. During her initial medical screening, Ms. Domingo-Garcia answered no to that question.”

Thus, ICE is saying very clearly that not only was she confirmed as not breastfeeding when she was initially examined sometime on August 7 or the day after, she was confirmed as not breastfeeding when medical personnel re-examined her on August 19 after the media allegation.

Generally, law enforcement tries to accommodate humanitarian needs, but the law by no means dictates that. According to ICE, “of the 680 persons initially arrested, 303 were released within 24 hours. ICE made those custody determinations based upon the totality of the circumstances on a case-by-case basis, and a person who identified themselves to this agency as a nursing mother would be considered to have a significant mitigating factor in that custody determination.”

Both the Clarion-Ledger and CNN are saying that this family is from Guatemala, but ICE has in its records that this family is from Mexico.

When it comes to the media’s coverage of illegal immigration, it’s not the evidence of their charges against ICE and Border Patrol that matters but the seriousness of their allegations. They have embarked on a mission to ignore every story of illegal aliens killing or raping American and immigrant children and are focusing only on the sympathetic needs of illegal alien children as a way of thwarting enforcement of sovereignty. Obfuscation is one thing, but now it appears that they are resorting to downright fabrication of stories in order to smear ICE.

Illegal immigrants have endless pro bono lawyers, media figures, judges, and politicians lying for them so they can steal the American birthright. Where are the lawyers for the American taxpayer to tell the truth?

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