Lawbreakers are Victims, according to the Associated Press

Perhaps it’s time for an in-depth study of America’s worst news-gathering organization, the Associated Press, also known as AP. AP has perfected the Orwellian use of language whereby a thing can be made into its opposite. Think “war is peace” and “freedom is slavery.”

Take this drivel by AP writer Monica Rhor, an August 16 article entitled “A small town struggles after immigration raid.”

Rhor describes Postville, Iowa, the site of a major immigration raid three months ago that led to the arrest of hundreds of illegal immigrants. She describes those in the town who were affected by the raid as “victims.” Rhor writes:

It was as if a tornado had whipped through the town or a flood had swallowed up houses. A disaster. Man-made, but a disaster all the same. Three months after the raid, that’s how many in Postville describe the events of May 12.

Lives disrupted. People pushed out of jobs and homes. Children separated from parents. Businesses verging towards collapse.

And as in any small town swept by disaster, the community quickly banded together to help the victims. 

But they’re not victims.

It seems silly to have to belabor the obvious point that the illegal immigrants arrested were (alleged) lawbreakers. If their family members who remain at large are present in the U.S. illegally, then they too are not victims: they’re lawbreakers. And the businesses in the town that hired the illegal immigrants are also not victims: they’re lawbreakers as well.