Media Want You To Feel Sorry For Terrorist’s Family, Not Victims

In 2016, the great Norm Macdonald offered a satirical but prophetic observation on Twitter: “What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?”

It was a joke, of course, but one that exemplifies an uncomfortable truth about media priorities. In the aftermath of violence caused by radical Islamists, the propaganda press seems less interested in the victims of the attack than in the potential consequences for those connected to the perpetrator.

Less than ten years later, Macdonald’s satire has taken on literal form.

On Tuesday, USA Today propagandist Michael Loria argued that Americans should feel sorry for Habiba Soliman, the daughter of the radical Islamist terrorist Mohamed Sabry Soliman. Soliman, an illegal alien, set Jewish demonstrators on fire in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday. Two dozen were injured, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. But according to Loria, the real tragedy here is that Soliman’s daughter might be deported.

“Boulder suspect’s daughter dreamed of studying medicine,” Loria wrote. “Now she faces deportation.”

Notably, Loria didn’t do a single profile on any of the victims — or their families.

But never mind the innocent demonstrators who were calling for the release of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, because the real victim here is Habiba, according to Loria.

“Prior to the attack, Habiba Soliman had written about her hope of accomplishing great things in the U.S.,” Loria wrote. “She won [a] scholarship and was profiled in the Colorado newspaper where she shared her dream of a ‘future medical career’ in the U.S.”

“Instead,” Loria laments, “the White House said on X on Tuesday that Mohamed Soliman’s wife and five children ‘could be deported by tonight.’”

Loria went on to rave about how Habiba volunteered at a local hospital and that she was among 20 winners of the “Best and Brightest” scholarship award. Loria dedicated an entire section to Habiba “overcoming challenges” like entering the United States, learning to speak English, and making friends. Now, as Loria laments, all that “hard work” may be for naught, as the Trump administration rightfully seeks to deport Habiba and her family. But deporting the family of a radical Islamist terrorist is not only justified — it’s necessary. A sovereign nation has the right and obligation to remove individuals who may present a danger to Americans and the American way of life.

But this kind of “journalism” is not meant to inform — it is meant to redirect sympathy. It is to make immigration enforcement appear cruel by dismissing or omitting the crimes themselves.

In Loria’s telling, Habiba isn’t the daughter of a would-be mass murderer who was in the country illegally — she’s the misunderstood protagonist in a morality play about America’s harsh immigration laws. That Soliman’s actions were not only violent but terroristic is merely the backdrop. The real story is a poor girl whose future may be disrupted.