{"id":55605,"date":"2025-04-30T20:20:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T00:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=55605"},"modified":"2025-04-30T20:21:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T00:21:20","slug":"residents-outraged-after-media-reporter-asks-hispanic-population-to-fuel-hit-piece-against-trump-desantis-illegal-alien-arrests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/04\/30\/residents-outraged-after-media-reporter-asks-hispanic-population-to-fuel-hit-piece-against-trump-desantis-illegal-alien-arrests\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents outraged after media reporter asks \u2018Hispanic\u2019 population to fuel hit-piece against Trump, DeSantis illegal alien arrests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Residents in a Southwest Florida jurisdiction are upset after a regional mainstream media reporter sent out a request for locals to go on the record scathing President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and law enforcement\u2019s\u00a0recent illegal alien raids in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Tomas Rodriguez, a reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press \u2013 which encompass the Collier and Lee County areas \u2013 posted in the Lehigh Acres FL Community Bulletin Board on Facebook, saying he\u2019s \u201cworking on a story about the most recent anti-immigration operation. ICE boasted nearly 800 detainees.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents took issue with the reporter\u2019s admission of a preconceived negative opinion of his report: \u201cLooking for people in SWFL who would be willing to talk about the situation in a somewhat chaotic way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Rodriguez also said he wants comments from the \u201cHispanic population\u201d about the arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post, sent out on Tuesday, has over 60 comments, many of which are from angry locals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operation from President Donald Trump\u2019s administration came as the Florida Legislature, headed by Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez, worked with DeSantis to produce strong anti-illegal immigration legislation as Trump took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis signed the legislation, and it was immediately put in motion, allowing Florida law enforcement greater latitude in immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since then, both county-level and state-level law enforcement have entered into agreements with ICE and have been helping detain illegal aliens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOperation Tidal Wave,\u201d which resulted in nearly 800 illegal alien arrests, took place as a \u201cfirst-of-its-kind partnership\u201d between ICE and Florida law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have close friends that went through all the red tape & proper channels to get loved ones & family into this country legally,\u201d said Mindy Schmidt in response to the inquiry. \u201cIt is disrespectful & a slap in the face to those that worked hard & paid thousands to do it right. If you are in this country illegally, you should be deported. Not given welfare, money & resources to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow about reporting the news and not a scripted \u2018chaotic\u2019 response,\u201d said Sean Barney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet ICE [do] their job, stay out of it,\u201d Robert Wilson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mean the anti-illegal immigrants?\u201d said Maggie Gonzalez. \u201cThat came to destroy our country while raping and murdering our women and children. Got everything free while the American citizens worked to support their families and paid taxes for the illegal immigrant freeloader criminals. Thank you ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis \u2018writer\u2019 is anti-American and using his position to prop up an agenda that we soundly rejected in the November election,\u201d said John Kisic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, the Naples Daily News ran one story, with the help of Rodriguez and reporters Ana Goni-Lessan and Valentina Palm.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cShock and anger: Florida immigrant communities react to \u2018Operation Tidal Wave,’\u201d the story\u2019s headline reads. It\u2019s unclear if that\u2019s the specific report Rodriguez sought comments for, but it includes no comments from Southwest Florida residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents in a Southwest Florida jurisdiction are upset after a regional mainstream media reporter sent out a request for locals to go on the record scathing President Donald Trump, Gov.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcLzA4MDUyM2xvc2FuZ2VsZXNfZnAud2VicD9maXQ9MzUwJTJDMjM5JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiUmVzaWRlbnRzIG91dHJhZ2VkIGFmdGVyIG1lZGlhIHJlcG9ydGVyIGFza3MgXHUyMDE4SGlzcGFuaWNcdTIwMTkgcG9wdWxhdGlvbiB0byBmdWVsIGhpdC1waWVjZSBhZ2FpbnN0IFRydW1wLCBEZVNhbnRpcyBpbGxlZ2FsIGFsaWVuIGFycmVzdHMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.DuHJF4exN9WtJ9AqHYfsBPr1HvLXdC04gyg3sl1bdcUMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55607,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/080523losangeles_fp.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[11463,11462],"class_list":["post-55605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-desantis-illegal-alien-arrests","tag-residents-outraged-after-media-reporter-asks-hispanic-population-to-fuel-hit-piece-against-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55611,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55605\/revisions\/55611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}