NBC Deletes Twitter Post Comparing Illegal Immigrants In Martha’s Vineyard To “Trash”

NBC published a story about DeSantis sending illegal Venezuelan immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, titled, “DeSantis sending asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard divides Venezuelan Americans.” In the story they quote a Venezuelan advertising executive and founding member of the Casa Venezuela Dallas foundation, Max Lefeld, saying what he thinks DeSantis sending the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard is like:

“It’s like me taking my trash out and just driving to different areas where I live and just throwing my trash there.”

The quote isn’t the issue. The issue with NBC’s deleted Twitter post is actually two-fold. Below is their post. Specifically, notice that their caption reads, “Florida Gov. DeSantis sending asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard is like ‘me taking my trash out and just driving to different areas where I live and just throwing my trash there,’ a founding member of a foundation which helps refuges says.”

First of all, they frame the article quote to very clearly compare asylum-seekers (curiously conflated with illegal immigrants despite a significant distinction) to “trash” being taken out, which is dehumanizing and disgusting. I know the left THINKS conservatives feel this way about illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, but it’s simply not the truth.

On top of that, the intended purpose of their caption was to frame the article as though Venezuelan Americans are mostly critical of DeSantis’ relocation of the illegal immigrants, even though the article itself was actually a rather well-balanced reflection of the Venezuelan community debate. Then Martha’s Vineyard evicted the immigrants within about 36 hours, labeling it a humanitarian crisis and calling in the National Guard to load the immigrants onto buses bound for a nearby military base. So then, NBC’s criticism that immigrant relocation is like taking out the “trash” actually made their own political allies at Martha’s Vineyard look pretty bad. So, they deleted it.

The article itself is basically about how support or disgust for DeSantis’ public stunt is mostly consistent with party lines within the Venezuelan American community itself. And it’s actually a fairly well-balanced look at both sides of the issue from the Venezuelan American perspective. Republican Venezuelans support his actions by saying the migrants are “delinquents” or are coming to the States for an “adventure,” and many think there should be more screening for criminal backgrounds, etc. They express concerns that former paramilitary, police force members, and released prisoners are likely among the illegal immigrants entering the country. Democrat Venezuelans (I can’t believe there even are any considering the country’s history with socialism and the clear socialist leanings of the Democrat party…) think it’s an insensitive political stunt.

What they should have done was post the article with a more balanced and honest representation of the content of the article rather than posting a caption that was clearly meant to influence the casual scroller to think Venezuelan Americans are mostly against DeSantis.