Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Friday that factless media coverage of an abandoned 5-year-old boy in Minnesota has fueled public unrest and dangerous misinformation about immigration enforcement.
He warned that irresponsible reporting is having real-world consequences.
"The media is stirring this discontent across the country, and they're getting people killed because of their false reporting," he said on "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
Mullin was responding to widespread coverage of a photo showing federal agents near a child outside a preschool in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.
Some media outlets and Democrats portrayed the image as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining or arresting the child, sparking protests and political backlash.
Mullin said that portrayal was false and omitted crucial facts provided by federal officials.
"This story that they're blowing up about this 5-year-old kid is so false and so untrue," he said. "They're not even reporting the facts."
According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents arrived at the preschool to detain the child's father, an Ecuadorian national living in the U.S. illegally. DHS said the father fled, leaving the boy behind.
Agents remained with the child to ensure his safety and later worked to reunite him with his parents. DHS has said the father and child are now being held together at a detention center in Texas.
Mullin said he personally discussed the case with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who he said shared details that were ignored by news outlets even after being provided to them.
"She actually sent them the facts, and they still didn't report it," Mullin said.
Mullin said agents offered to release the child to his mother without arresting or deporting her, but she did not come to retrieve him. Agents then asked the father how he wanted to proceed.
"He said, bring it with me. I want to keep him," Mullin said. "And so, they're actually flying them both back to where they [came from]."
Mullin accused the media of exploiting a single image to inflame emotions while ignoring broader immigration failures under the Biden administration.
"We have right now over 300,000 kids we can't find," he said, referring to unaccounted-for migrant children released into the U.S. "The chances are they probably are getting trafficked."
He contrasted the intense coverage of the Minnesota case with what he described as silence on large-scale child exploitation tied to illegal immigration.
DHS has repeatedly said ICE does not target children for arrest and that minors are placed in protective care when their parents are detained.
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