The season premiere of NBC police drama Law & Order: SVU went hard against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), portraying them as the episode’s villains who invade ongoing court proceedings, are seen arresting New York Police officers, and are accused of protecting rapists.
The episode, entitled “In the Wind,” begins with a rape being witnessed by an illegal alien named Ruiz (Juan Francisco Villa), who agrees to testify against the accused rapist in court.
But when the court date nears, Ruiz seems to be missing, and Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) goes to his apartment. When she arrives, she finds an ICE action going on and Ruiz has fled the scene to avoid being picked up by immigration officials.
Assistant District Attorney Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) goes to the judge and accuses the lawyer for the accused rapist of calling in ICE to raid the building where Ruiz lives in order to block his testimony in the rape trial. It is also revealed that Ruiz has a drug arrest from 15 years prior.
Naturally, the SVU officers portray the drug conviction as a “bogus charge” because apparently no illegal is ever legitimately accused of a crime.
Despite the ICE action, the judge tells Carisi that the case will go on and if Ruiz doesn’t show, then that is too bad for the prosecution. This sets the episode up for Benson and her officers to track Ruiz down so he can appear in court to help convict a rapist.
As an aside, the “rapist” in the episode is a white man (Cayleb Long) who owns an apartment building where two women are raped. So, not only are ICE the bad guys, but the rapist is a white landowner.
Benson and Carisi get on their high horses and accuse ICE of interfering in a rape case. But they succeed in tracking Ruiz down and bring him back to the squad room to convince him to testify even though ICE is now hunting him. And Ruiz is seen wondering why he should testify if he is now in danger of being deported.
In Benson’s squad room, Ruiz says he’s been in the U.S. for 22 years and has always been law-abiding, and tax-paying, and that one arrest was a bogus charge. Benson claims the NYPD will “do everything that we can to protect you.”
As NewsBusters notes, the scene continued:
Ruiz: So my choices are to–to run and hide and hope that they never find me or to– to just leave my whole life and just go back. And now you’re asking me to do something nice for my government? Why would I do that?
Benson: You’re right. You’re absolutely right. And if you got up and walked out of here right now, nobody would blame you. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Ruíz, you came in here tonight, which tells me that you want to do what’s right, whether or not you get something back in return.
But it all quickly goes topsy turvy when ICE agents barrel into the squad room to arrest Ruiz.
With ICE agents headed their way, Benson’s first idea is to take Ruiz down a back stairway, thereby helping Ruiz escape ICE. Carisi, though, advises against that.
Once ICE gets in the room, Benson ends up arrested by the feds for obstructing a federal action.
Detective Velasco: They don’t have a warrant.
Carisi: Doesn’t matter. They’re Feds.
Captain Curry: So they take our witness, and we can’t do anything about it?
Benson: Hold on a second. I need you to trust me. Can you do that? [Tense music] Velasco, arrest him.
Velasco: What?
Benson: Now. Arrest him now.
Detective Velasco:Mr. Ruíz, you’re under arrest.
ICE Agent: Captain Vincent, you’re interfering with a federal operation.
Carisi: Oh, no, she’s not. Jorge Ruíz is a material witness, and he’s in the custody of the NYPD.
Benson: Do you really want to help a rapist go free? He’s ours, okay? Take him to holding.
Carisi: Once he provides his testimony–no, no. We’ll release him.
ICE Agent: This you? You have been obstructing this operation from the beginning. That is a federal charge. Put your hands behind your back.
ICE is further portrayed as the bad guys later in the episode as they invade a court room while the rape trial is being conducted and again try to take Ruiz away. In this scene, the municipal judge gets the chance to attack ICE by bellowing, “No, not in my courtroom. Jimmy, tell them they can wait outside, but they are not welcome here.”
Unfortunately, nowhere in the episode is the real record of ICE truly relayed and the NBC audience is never told that ICE arrests thousands of dangerous career criminals and illegal aliens who have pilfered, raped, and murdered their ways across the United states.
The episode’s calumny that ICE is in business to protect rapists is particularly egregious since ICE has arrested thousands of sex offenders and taken them off our American streets.
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