The New York Times recently ran an indignant article on the Department of Justice’s arrest of two fugitives in Mexico who were accused of involvement in a mostly peaceful arson during the #BLM protests in the Twin Cities last year. As the Times described it: “One night in the Twin Cities, shortly after the killing of George Floyd, someone set a fire in a Goodwill.”

Why would law enforcement authorities be so obsessed with such a minor offense? “To fellow protesters,” the Times explained, “it’s part of an extreme crackdown on those who most fervently demonstrated against America’s criminal justice system.”

A former FBI agent, Michael German — now working for the anti-police Brennan Center for Justice — confirmed that former Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice had pursued BLM protesters “very aggressively,” adding, “It wouldn’t surprise me that this case would have been a high-priority one.” (Do any FBI agents support law enforcement?)

Luckily, that’s changed under President Biden!

Whereas the Times was upset that the perps were caught, my takeaway from the story was: HECKUVA JOB, IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES!

It seems our arsonist heroes are Jose Angel Felan Jr., a Mexican immigrant with multiple felony convictions, and his accomplice, Mena Dyaha Yousif, an Iraqi generously taken in by this country as a child because of a war in her own country. (Of course, our government won’t just come out and tell us when criminals are immigrants, but the Felan family’s specialization in transporting illegal aliens across the border is a pretty good hint.)

Although the Times wasn’t overly prolix about the arsons, Felan didn’t just light up a Goodwill store. He also started blazes at a school for disadvantaged youth and an Asian-owned black hair products store — establishments that practically scream “White Supremacy Power Structure”!

Jin Lim, owner of the black hair products store, described the effect of the “fervent” protests on his business: “Completely destroyed.” Insurance covered only 60% of the property damage. But who cares about Lim? Certainly no one at the Times.

Inexplicably, U.S. law enforcement refused to let bygones be bygones, and tracked the fire-bugs to Mexico, finally arresting them in February.

Felan’s criminal record (slipped in around paragraph 2,000 of the Times article) includes “a drug possession charge when he was 18 that led to an almost seven-year prison sentence …”

Hold it right there! Seven years for a first offense, at the tender age of 18? That’s not a run-of-the-mill drug case.

He also went to prison for, among other things, “transporting undocumented immigrants near the Mexican border.” Perhaps someday, those “undocumented immigrants” will also fervently protest racial injustice by setting fire to businesses in minority neighborhoods!

To quote the motto of the school Felan torched: “Unity Through Diversity!”

After fleeing from Minnesota to Texas, our model immigrants were assisted in their getaway by Felan’s family. According to law enforcement, Felan’s mother switched cars with the perps, allowing them to evade authorities. Then his brother, also previously convicted of transporting illegals, helped get them across the border to Mexico.

Again: Bang-up job, U.S. immigration authorities! Of all 158 million people who want to immigrate to the U.S., you guys let in an entire family of criminals.

But it was not the failure of our immigration system that got the Times’ goat. Nor the culprits’ wanton destruction of a poor neighborhood or flight from justice. It was that facial recognition technology might, in theory, have led to the fugitives’ capture.

That was the whole point of this 3,200-word article: The arrest of criminal immigrants in Mexico “exposed a growing system of global surveillance.”

By “global surveillance,” the Times means “cameras.” It’s one thing to have cameras recording cops 24/7, but when cameras are used to catch criminals, well, gentlemen, we’re looking at a civil rights case.

Except it turns out, no cameras were used to catch these Dreamers. It was a tip to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that led to their capture, for which the AFT paid out a $20,000 reward.

But high-tech cameras might have helped nab the accused felons — and isn’t that just awful? You don’t have to take the Times’ word for it! Adam Schwartz, attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: “It’s very upsetting.”

In the Times’ ideal world, we bring other countries’ criminals here, they commit felonies with abandon, and as long as they make it out of the country without getting caught, they’re home free!

In my ideal world, we stop bringing other countries’ criminals here.

COPYRIGHT 2021 ANN COULTER