A Spokesman-Review story about Border Patrol detaining a Spokane fourth grader and her father was engineered to make you feel something first and ask questions later. It is the classic trick of activist journalism, handing the reader a victim narrative, while quietly leaving out the facts that complicate their left-wing narrative.

In the initial advocacy reporting, the paper framed Arnoldo Tiul-Caal as a law abiding dad who was simply trying to get his daughter to school.

“He has an active asylum case and a court date for 2027, a valid work permit and a Social Security number, Herrera said,” according to The Spokesman-Review, citing Olga Lucia Herrera, a volunteer helping him navigate court proceedings. They do not explain why he was seeking asylum. “He had made nearly every appointment for a regular check-in with immigration officials, except for a recent date around the holidays when he was having phone problems.”

A later article then quotes Governor Bob Ferguson using this incident to slam President Donald Trump.

The problem? This isn’t true, according to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). And Tiul-Caal’s problems started during the Biden administration.

Immigration enforcement details the media did not feature

CBP’s statement lays out a compliance history that makes the detention look far more reasonable than the emotion driven coverage suggested. In a statement to The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red 770 AM, CBP described repeated missed obligations with ICE.

“In 2023, Tiul-Caal missed three check-in appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE-ERO) and was issued another notice to appear,” according to a CBP spokesperson. “Between Oct. 21, 2024, and May 1, 2025, he missed seven additional check ins with ICE-ERO. On July 10, 2025, Tiul-Caal was terminated from ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program due to noncompliance after seven more violations.”

CBP notes that Tiul-Caal and his daughter entered the country illegally from Guatemala via El Paso in 2019, “and were released into the country by the Biden Administration.” His daughter, according to reports, does not have any family to stay with in the U.S. Indeed, her mom and sister live back home in Guatemala.

But Spokesman-Review, and Ferguson, seem to believe that the child should either be left alone on the streets rather than be “detained,” or should be reason to never enforce immigration law against a single-parent. He wasn’t even arrested in public. He turned himself in after agreeing to self-deport, though later claimed that he was coerced into that.

Missing details seems intentional

Readers can disagree with immigration policy. They can dislike detention as a tactic. But they cannot fairly judge what happened if the press sells only the sympathetic half of the story and treats the enforcement half as an inconvenience. How many missed check-ins and terminations from detention alternatives should qualify for detainment? Left-wing media, apparently, believes the number should be endless.

This could have been avoided had the Spokesman-Review, and other outlets like the Seattle Times, didn’t rely on “facts” to be relayed by advocates. Herrera’s claims were uncritically reprinted. No fact-checking at all and it’s unclear how much time the paper even gave to CBP to respond to their questions. This all seems very intentional.

The article even criticizes the judge assigned to the Tiul-Caal case, complaining she doesn’t offer enough passes to asylum-seekers. The only time left-wing media support the process is if the judge does what they demand.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Seattle Red on 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.