DHS slammed as 'propagandist' by expert for 'spinning' man's 'brutal beating'

A prominent immigration attorney is hitting back against the Department of Homeland Security, which claimed in a video posted on X that a person "assaulted federal law enforcement with a weed whacker."

The Homeland Security account on X wrote Monday that the man "ASSAULTED federal law enforcement with a WEED WHACKER."

"Perhaps the mainstream media would like our officers to stand there and be mowed down instead of defending themselves? What a completely slanted portrayal of what actually happened," the post alleged.

Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick immediately attacked DHS for spinning propaganda, replying on X, "The video shows him vaguely waving a weed whacker at someone far outside his reach, as he runs away from people he says didn't identify themselves or even say anything as they ran at him. That is not assault under any definition of the term. And it doesn't merit BEING BEATEN."

He took a screen capture of the video at the point where the individual was holding up the weed eater.

"This is not a picture of a law enforcement officer being assaulted, no matter how much the propagandists at @DHSGov are spinning it. And it absolutely does not justify a brutal beating of the man, who has no criminal history and is dad to 3 U.S. Marines."

Over the past several weeks, DHS has used masked agents to attack and arrest those suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Trump previously reported that only "criminals" would be targeted, but Trump's officials are casting a significantly wider net to reach quotas of 3,000 arrests per day.

American Immigration Lawyers Association adviser Angela Kelley asked, “What happened to his promise of targeting criminals? He’s had to create larger numbers of targets and even then, the folks aren’t criminals, because they’re here legally."

Over the weekend, The Guardian's correspondent Sam Levin penned an analysis saying that Homeland Security's claim that their officers are being attacked doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Alec Karakatsanis, the founder of Civil Rights Corps, told Levin, “This is the classic propaganda tactic of George Orwell’s 1984."

See the full video below or at the link here.