Liberals and themainstream mediawere wrong. The Disney raid was not about hate for immigrants or brown people. It was about child pornography.
Between April 23 and 27, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) boardedeight cruise shipsat the Port of San Diego Cruise Ship Terminal as part of an ongoing Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSAM) enforcement operation.
On April 28, HSI San Diego arrested23 crew membersfrom multiple ships under Operation Tidal Wave, acting on intelligence from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Electronic service providers, platforms such as WhatsApp, Google, and iCloud, are legally required to report detected CSAM to NCMEC, which routes tips to HSI for investigation.
The process is automated and mandatory, initiated by algorithmic detection rather than any administration policy. Of the 28 people detained, CBP confirmed27 were involvedin the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing of CSAM, 26 Filipino nationals, one Portuguese, and one Indonesian. Ten were workers on the Disney Magic.
The Disney Magic is registered in the Bahamas, as are the majority of major cruise ships. Because it flies a foreign flag, U.S. labor laws do not apply, and the crew held C1/D crewmember visas rather than standard U.S. work permits. Foreign registry does not, however, create immunity from U.S. federal criminal law.
CBP retains full authority to board vessels entering U.S. ports, and CSAM possession and distribution are federal crimes regardless of where a ship is flagged. Following confirmed CSAM findings,CBP cancelledthe visas of all 27 and returned them to their countries of citizenship. Disney stated it has a zero-tolerance policy, cooperated fully with law enforcement, and terminated the employees involved.
Media framingmade it appear that ICE raided a Disney ship forno good reasonand arrested the crew “in front of children” and “stunned passengers “simply for being foreign. The only reason given in these posts was that President Trump hates brown people, ignoring the fact that the people arrested were not necessarily brown.Bored Pandaran reader commentary stating: “Let’s remember that this is the Trump administration making claims about brown foreign workers.”
The New Republic headlined the story, “ICE Abducts DisneyStaff Right Off of Cruise Ship in Sickening Raid,” and opened with the claim that “Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making life a nightmare for its workers.” This was wrong on two counts: the agencies involved were CBP and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), not ICE, and the operation targeted child exploitation, not immigration status. KPBS amplified activist Benjamin Prado of Unión del Barrio, who framed the arrests as “a larger patternof aggressive raids and immigration detention at work sites.”
Even media outlets considered more mainstream misrepresented the operation. Headlines includedSFGate’s“Disney Cruise Line Raid in Calif. Leaves Philippine Consulate Concerned,”NBC 7San Diego’s “Disney Cruise Ship Passenger Says ICE Detained Her Waiter Upon Disembarking,” and theCalifornia Post’s“ICE Agents Storm Disney Cruise Docking in California and Arrest Multiple Staff in Front of Stunned Passengers.” KPBS also amplified activists who claimed immigration agents had arrested cruise workers in San Diego.
The workers were not undocumented migrants targeted because of their immigration status. They entered the United States legally on valid C1/D crew visas, which were revoked following confirmed involvement with CSAM offenses.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
