The American citizen is the forgotten man in the entire immigration debate. Media coverage, and consequently policy discussion, surrounding the issue of illegal immigration revolves exclusively around the needs and desires of the illegal alien, as if the American people don’t exist. One federal prosecutor overseeing the prosecution of hundreds of illegal aliens for identity theft in Mississippi is accusing NPR of omitting a phrase from his interview to ensure that American victims are literally forgotten in this discussion.

On August 7, ICE agents fanned out in seven towns throughout Mississippi and arrested 680 illegal aliens in the largest worksite immigration enforcement operation in history. Given the importance of the promise in 1986 to criminalize illegal alien employment, and given the number of illegal aliens in this country, this story shouldn’t have been newsworthy, but after years of limited enforcement, the sweep of Koch Foods of its illegal alien workers has generated a lot of interest.

One of the stories to emerge from this raid is that many illegal aliens, even the ones who don’t commit other crimes, steal the identities of Americans. Illegal immigration is likely the single biggest factor driving identity theft, which is a devastating crime to the victim. According to the DHS, 400 U.S. citizens had their identities stolen by illegal aliens working in these poultry plants in Mississippi. Last week, under the leadership of Mike Hurst, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, 119 of these illegal aliens apprehended in the August raids were prosecuted for identity theft or fraud.

NPR sat down with Hurst to discuss the enforcement action, and he was trying to make the point that people often mistakenly believe these are victimless crimes. Now, Hurst is accusing NPR of editing out his reference to victims of these illegal alien workers from the transcript posted Tuesday.

I went ahead & redlined @NPR‘s online transcript for them to reflect what I actually said at https://t.co/WFjD635AjI Let’s see if @npr @arishapiro correct the record on air at @MorningEdition @npratc to the millions of Americans that weren’t given the whole #truth this morning pic.twitter.com/2a54e3KW9D — US Attorney Mike Hurst (@USAttyHurst) November 13, 2019

This wasn’t just a selected quote in a longer column or news report as part of broader prose written by the author. This was a transcript of the conversation that omitted the references to victims. In this case, hundreds of Americans will likely spend years digging out of criminal and financial problems associated with their names.

“It’s extremely concerning that some media outlets would manipulate and delete words in an interview just because they don’t fit the media’s preconceived narrative,” said U.S. attorney Hurst in response to request for comment from CR. “Nevertheless, we in the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to tell the truth, do justice, and fight for crime victims and the public, no matter the cost.”

The media and politicians continue to ignore the victims of identity theft in the context of the immigration debate. Bloomberg reporter Drew Armstrong recently wrote an essay chronicling his personal devastation caused by an illegal alien identity thief. It took him six years to clean up the financial mess, the endless purchases under his name, and the watchlists that he was placed on as a result of the illicit activity.