While many Americans were celebrating Independence Day, law enforcement officers simply doing their jobs in Texas were under attack. A heavily armed and organized group of militants ambushed federal agents and local police outside the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado.

The attack was calculated, coordinated, and politically motivated. A police officer was shot in the neck. Multiple arrests followed. Authorities recovered tactical gear, riot weapons, and anti-government literature.

I previously wrote about how the radical left owns this violence. But that’s not the end of the story.

You’d think such an attack would lead every national broadcast. But if you were watching CNN or MSNBC that day, you wouldn’t have seen it at all.

That’s not rhetorical exaggeration—it’s a matter of record. Neither CNN nor MSNBC covered the attack on air, according to a detailed review by Fox News, and as first noted in an opinion column by Isaac Schorr at Mediaite.

Not in primetime. Not during breaking news segments.

The media minders on duty decided you didn’t need to know.

Whether they thought the story was unimportant—or simply too inconvenient—the result was the same. Yes, CNN apparently published a brief story online. But that’s hardly the point.

Now imagine if the ideological roles were reversed—if right-wing extremists launched a July 4 assault on a blue-state facility, wounding officers, brandishing rifles, and scrawling fascist slogans.

There would be wall-to-wall coverage, solemn panel discussions, “Democracy in Peril” chyrons, breathless calls for crackdowns—and a swift move to indict the entire political right.

We know this because of precedent.

When Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was targeted in a vile antisemitic attack earlier this year, the media responded appropriately—with sustained coverage and public outrage. That was justified.

We also know how CNN and MSNBC handled January 6, 2021: nonstop coverage, primetime hearings, special segments, and months of editorial handwringing. 

But when the violence targets ICE—and when the attackers appear to align with far-left ideology—certain corners of the corporate press simply look away.

Let’s be clear: these same outlets have spent years amplifying progressive attacks on ICE, routinely portraying its agents as racist, abusive, and authoritarian.

Worse still, CNN recently promoted an app that allowed users to report and track the movements of ICE agents in their communities—a “resource” that undoubtedly endangers federal officers risking their lives to apprehend often-violent criminal aliens.

The July 4 blackout is yet another nail in the coffin of legacy media’s credibility. This is curated narrative management, highlighting the dangers of a handful of ideologically aligned newsrooms determining what Americans are allowed to know.

Frankly, I don’t think the July 4 silence was just a matter of the C-team and interns running the newsroom. It feels more deliberate than that.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the refusal to cover the Alvarado ambush is part of a deeper pattern—a media establishment that treats immigration enforcement as inherently illegitimate.

The press isn’t merely failing in its duty to inform. It is actively abetting a dangerous culture of impunity—one where ideological violence is being normalized, even excused—so long as it serves the progressive cause.

And this time, that normalization took the form of silence: treating attempted assassination as so routine, it wasn’t even newsworthy.

That is a growing threat to the Republic.

Make no mistake: the silence is the story. And every American should be asking why the people who claim to protect democracy refuse even to acknowledge the attempted assassination of those who defend our borders.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, writer, and former chief executive officer and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC

Image from Grok.