Telemundo lately cannot seem to resist the temptation to present as news to its television audience viral social media videos, even when the videos in question do not stand up to the most minimum scrutiny as legitimate news.
The latest case involves the decision of the Spanish-language sister network of NBC to feature on its national morning show a viral Facebook video of a Border Patrol agent routinely and politely asking Greyhound bus passengers for their legal status documentation, as permitted by law, within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
Though perfectly legal, liberal activists who oppose immigration law enforcement at practically every turn are doing whatever they can to pressure for an end to such surprise inspections by the Border Patrol, and Telemundo obliged by once again giving them totally one-sided publicity.
PAULINA SODI, NEWS ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: It happened again. A Border Patrol agent on board a bus asked passengers for proof of citizenship. This incident occurred in New Mexico and has generated the repudiation of activists, who maintain that the Border Patrol violates the rights of people and private property, which is why they have asked bus companies to demand that the Border Patrol show judicial orders before allowing these inspections.
U.S. immigration law explicitly authorizes that federal immigration officers may, without a warrant, "within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States...board and search for aliens in any vessel within the territorial waters of the United States and any railcar, aircraft, conveyance, or vehicle.” The Code of Federal Regulations goes on to define “a reasonable distance” as 100 air miles from the border. The video featured by Telemundo took place on a Greyhound bus within 40 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Telemundo ignored any reference to the above law, which would have torpedoed the raison d’être of even airing the story, as well as omitted the location of the operation, which took place well within the prescribed borderland limits.
It is clear that the purpose of airing the bogus story of a routine, legal and actually quite polite intervention by a Border Patrol agent was only to gin up the audience (since the video had already proven its click-bait worthiness on social media) as well as once again publicize the cause of the anti-Border Patrol activists.
Below is the transcript of the entire above-referenced report, as aired during the July 24, 2018 edition of the Telemundo morning show Un Nuevo Día:
PAULINA SODI, NEWS ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: It happened again. A Border Patrol agent on board a bus asked passengers for proof of citizenship. This incident occurred in New Mexico and has generated the repudiation of activists, who maintain that the Border Patrol violates the rights of people and private property, which is why they have asked bus companies to demand that the Border Patrol show judicial orders before allowing these inspections.
LUIS NOLASCO, ACLU ACTIVIST: In regard to private places uh, what, under the Constitution, is needed is that agencies obtain a search warrant in order to enter those places.
WALTER, IDENTIFIED AS “NO LONGER WANTS TO TRAVEL BY BUS”: With a lot of fear, because, well, there then one is thinking that soon they are going to stop you there and take you away.
PAULINA SODI: According to an authorization by the Supreme Court, Border Patrol agents who carry out these inspections must do so no more than one hundred miles from the border.
