The Los Angeles Times would like you to believe that America is now deporting “undocumented grandmothers” for nothing more than a harmless wrong turn. The headline writes itself, dripping with outrage: ICE to deport 64-year-old dishwasher after mistaken exit off freeway. It’s the kind of framing that turns a clear-cut legal matter into a heartstrings drama — and one that conveniently leaves out almost all of the relevant facts.
Let’s be clear from the start: the woman in question is not a random victim of geographic confusion. She is an illegal immigrant — not an “undocumented grandmother,” not an “unregistered worker,” and certainly not a motorist caught up in a tragic twist of fate. She entered and remained in the United States for over twenty years without ever regularizing her status. That is not a clerical error or an oversight. That’s a choice.
Undocumented grandmother faces deportation after wrong turn in San Diego https://t.co/zNmQFhvWOX
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 8, 2025
And yet, in an attempt to manipulate public perception, the LA Times recasts her story as that of an innocent elder simply trying to get home. They even lead with:
“A 64-year-old grandmother in the U.S. without documentation is facing deportation after she mistakenly took the wrong exit on her way home from work.”
Except that “wrong exit” took her onto a military base — one of the few places in America where ID is not a suggestion, but a requirement. When she failed to provide legal identification or authorization, she was detained and transferred to ICE. That’s not a miscarriage of justice; that’s enforcement working exactly as it’s supposed to.
Some context you don’t get in the headline:
She had been living in the U.S. illegally for 20 years, has no drivers license (but was still driving), has no identification of any kind, and drove onto a military base where she was stopped and unable to ID herself. https://t.co/uKkgRVMCck
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 8, 2025
The Times fails to mention that she was also driving without a license. In California, where illegal immigrants are eligible for state-issued driver’s licenses and vehicle insurance, this raises another red flag. She had options — legal avenues that she chose not to pursue. It’s not unreasonable to ask: if she ignored immigration laws for 20 years, and motor vehicle laws as well, at what point does the law mean anything?
This isn’t about cruelly targeting grandmothers. This is about the basic principle that laws — including immigration laws — matter. A citizen who drives without a license onto a military base would face consequences too. So why should an illegal immigrant get a pass simply because she’s older or working a low-income job?
