It took 17 paragraphs.
Seventeen. One-seven. And that’s 17 paragraphs of a 31-paragraph story. That’s how long it took Newsweek when recounting the sob story of an immigrant who’s being deported to mention the most important detail of why he’s being deported: namely, that he was convicted of attempted murder.
I mean, but other than that …
Jose Barco, a 39-year-old who was born in Venezuela to parents who were Cuban, has been in the United States since he was four. He served in the U.S. Army, was awarded a Purple Heart, and had applied for citizenship while he was serving; according to PBS, Barco’s commanding officer said his application “should have been approved by the end of calendar year 2006” but “the packet was lost, and we have not been able to find a chain of custody document.”
Then came the events of 2008 and 2009; in April 2008, Barco apparently opened fire on a house party in Colorado Springs. In 2009, a jury found him guilty of attempted murder for hitting a 19-year-old pregnant woman in the leg. Initially sentenced to 52 years behind bars, he got off in 15 for good behavior.
However, when he was released in January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody and sought to deport him to Venezuela.
Most of the media, to the extent that they covered it, covered it as a sob story — Barco has no support system in either Venezuela or Cuba, after all, and he has a wife and a 15-year-old daughter — but bearing in mind what Barco had done. PBS’ headline: “He served his country, then he served time. Where does Jose Barco go now?” The Denver Gazette: “Deported former Army soldier returned to Colorado after Venezuela refused to take him.”
Newsweek, however, rather took the cake on this April 6 report on the matter: “Veteran Who Has Been in US Since He Was 4 Years Old Faces Deportation.”
The first two grafs:
Jose Barco, a U.S. Army veteran awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq, is currently being held in a Texas detention center awaiting deportation after having lived in the United States for 35 years.
Barco, who is not a U.S. citizen but has served in the military, has a criminal record, having just completed his 15-year prison sentence the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
OK, then — for what? It doesn’t say, noting that former Grand Junction, Colorado, Mayor Anna Stout, who is assisting his family, said that Barco “is virtually stateless at this time, with his country of birth rejecting his admission and the country he shed blood for ordering him removed.”
So we know he served a prison sentence, which wasn’t mentioned in the headline, but for what? Again, we’re dragged through an explainer on “Why It Matters” (“Although the administration says it is prioritizing individuals with criminal records or gang affiliations, some legal residents and non-criminal immigrants have also been detained and deported. … Mental illness is common among veterans and military personnel. A 2017 Rand Corporation analysis found that out of the 2.8 million service members deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, between 13 and 20 percent experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 19 to 23 percent have a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and 44 percent have difficulty adjusting to civilian life”) and then an explainer about Barco — but not the crime he committed.
First, the fact that his dad fled to Venezuela from Cuba and then came to the United States when Barco was four. He had a wife and a daughter, joined the U.S. Army when he was younger, got deployed to Iraq in 2004, was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury later on, applied for citizenship, didn’t get it.
We go through three paragraphs about his citizenship struggle with his commanding officer, a paragraph about his discharge in 2008 “with serious TBI symptoms,” the regiment he served in, the fact it was featured in a PBS documentary, where he was stationed, pretty much everything but the guy’s favorite color.
And then, 17th and 18th paragraphs:
On April 25, 2008, Barco opened fire on a house party crowd in Colorado Springs, striking a 19-year-old, who was five months pregnant at the time, in the leg, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. He was convicted of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of felony menacing and was sentenced to 52 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced to 40 years in 2014.
Barco served 15 years in prison in Colorado, Tia told Newsweek. She said he first served at Buena Vista Correctional Complex and then the last five years in “an incentive program at CSP Colorado State Prison [Penitentiary].”
Well, that’s quite the detail to bury, now, isn’t it?
https://www.westernjournal.com/newsweek-buries-horrific-detail-17-paragraphs-story-illegal-served-us-military/