Newsweek attempted to paint an illegal alien who was arrested for driving under the influence as a model citizen on Monday, citing an award he received 13 years ago that’s reportedly given to millions of students each year.
The article didn’t open with Darwin Contreras’ criminal past, but rather stated he was “recognized by former President Barack Obama” and is now “being held in federal custody following a routine court appearance.”
Contreras, 27, has been in the United States since the age of seven, and “was a recipient of the President’s Education Awards Program,” his wife, Elizabeth DeJesus, told the news outlet.
Newsweek even obtained a copy of the award from all the way back in January 2012, during Obama’s first term.
“This boy was turning into an athletic man with dreams of pursuing soccer as a career. His senior year, he unfortunately had to drop out and get a job. So instead, he picked up track and field,” DeJesus added.
“He motivated his teammates to go hard during practice and to never stop. After graduating from high school, he got a job and continued to work hard,” she continued.
They’re making him out to be the patron saint of high school sports, despite the fact that he dropped out of school and later turned to a life of crime.
The award, by the way, is not very difficult to qualify for, especially if you consider today’s declining academic standards.
All a student has to do is maintain a 3.5 GPA and do relatively well on “State Tests and Nationally-Normed Achievement Tests.” They can also have their SAT or ACT scores taken into consideration.
Should Darwin Contreras be deported?
Additionally, the Education Department’s website says a student can be considered if they receive “recommendations from a Teacher Plus One Other Staff Member,” reflecting their “outstanding achievement” in a specific subject.
“The second recommendation from a school staff member may address, for example: involvement in community service or co-curricular activities.”
It’s not exactly the Nobel Prize. In 2016 alone, three million students were recipients of the award, according to Education World, an online content provider for teachers and administrators.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, spoke with Newsweek and said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Contreras while at a court hearing for a DUI.
Yes, this is the type of person we want to at the front of our citizenship line. Forget tech workers, medical students, writers, teachers, mathematicians, or engineers. We need people who were brought here illegally as children, but who didn’t finish high school.
Why didn’t Newsweek begin the story with his criminal background? Why would they lay out his achievements from over a decade ago?
“His criminal history includes convictions for theft and possession of marijuana,” McLaughlin emphasized. “This criminal illegal alien admitted to law enforcement that he is in the country illegally.”
The media is putting everyone who’s up for deportation on a pedestal. It’s unbecoming for a news outlet to take this approach.
If painting him as an innocent scholar-athlete wasn’t enough, Newsweek went on to highlight “Contreras’ journey to the U.S. from El Salvador” and how it “was marked by trauma,” according to his wife.
“He witnessed harrowing scenes, including dead bodies and acts of exploitation,” the article read.
Seriously? Then why didn’t his family try coming in the right way? Because they probably wanted to jump the line and knew they had to break the law to do it.
“On his second attempt, instead of being reunited with his mother, he was met by authorities and a caseworker, and spent time in detention before being placed in a foster home,” the article explained. “He eventually reunited with his mother, and he went on to grow up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he attended school and thrived.”
DeJesus then blamed “ICE’s actions” for disrupting their lives and causing her husband to devolve into a “deteriorating mental and physical state.”
Contreras is awaiting a hearing date to determine his fate, Newsweek reported.
He broke the law, plain and simple. You can’t violate federal rules and then claim you did it for the right reasons. And you certainty shouldn’t be allowed to benefit from it.
If American citizens tried using this defense in other countries, the police there would likely lock them up and throw away the key.
Yet in the U.S., far-left politicians and mainstream media outlets prefer to treat illegals like overachieving heroes who deserve to be canonized. Go figure.
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