Baby-eating Satanists From Outer Space!

In the great tradition of Hearst-owned newspapers' turn of the century reporting on the "Yellow Peril", it's been a week of inflammatory headlines from the San Francisco Chronicle.

It all started with a recent Federal probe into San Francisco's policy of not using local resources to actively cooperate with immigration officials to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. Apparently an ICE official stopped a San Francisco official who was escorting two Honduran youths back to their families in Honduras (as an alternative to locking them up in local facilities, or turning them over to ICE where they would be locked up in federal detention centers).

Consistently, the Chronicle has demonized youths in this particular case as "crack-dealers" and "illegals".

The worst of the headlines:
"8 crack dealers shielded by S.F. walk away"
"ILLEGALS CALLED COURT'S PROBLEM"
"S.F. mayor shifts policy on illegal offenders"
"Crack dealer caught in S.F. after escape"

Unaddressed or minimized is the city's concern for human rights, community relations and how to rehabilitate youths caught up in the drug trade, as opposed to merely engaging in punitive measures. Unsurprisingly, of course, national studies have shown that a focus on rehabilitation is more effective than a focus on punishment/deterrence.

Also a mere moment's reflection is needed to realize that children usually don't freely choose to leave their home country in order to engage in an illegal and dangerous profession, and have probably been abused or coerced. Apparently Chronicle writers are a little too pressed by deadlines to take the time to, what is it called, think?

Also galling is the bait-and-switch in the article with perhaps the most sensationalist headline. While the bold text appropriately boldly proclaims them "crack-dealers shielded by S.F.", the article is more circumspect, saying that they had been "convicted of dealing drugs". What drugs, and how the convictions were obtained (plea bargains? did they have adequate representation?) are left unspecified and unexplored. Truly, this is tabloid journalism at its most craven.

And, of course, the Chronicle (and ICE, really) don't seem to have any suggestions about how local officials are supposed to determine and report immigration status for those arrested. Selectively asking/investigating arrestees based on police suspicion about their immigration status would degenerate quickly into racial and linguistic profiling (though perhaps the Chronicle could find a xenophobic journalist or editor willing to defend racism in the name of immigration enforcement). Asking/investigating everybody arrested would destroy whatever trust the police have managed to build with immigrant communities and make it difficult if not impossible to persuade victims and witnesses to report crime or cooperate in investigations. Not to mention the additional time it would take to confirm every arrestee's immigration status.

Tim Redmond criticizes the coverage at the SF Guardian's blog.

I may analyze each of the terrible articles in more detail in upcoming posts. Each of them invites a scathing response.

(oh, and happy Fourth of July weekend, all)

Image: "The Yellow Terror In All His Glory", 1899 editorial cartoon