The White House mocked filmmaker Michael Moore on Wednesday for his suggestion that the U.S. might be missing out on a future cure for cancer because it’s deporting illegal immigrants.
Presidential spokesman Kush Desai said Mr. Moore’s comments are a “strong contender for dumbest statement of the year,” and suggested the people being deported weren’t in line for a Nobel Prize.
“Michael Moore is free to visit the quantum computing and particle physics labs that MS-13, TDA, and the cartels are now going to have to set up back home in El Salvador, Venezuela and Mexico,” Mr. Desai said.
Mr. Moore, in a piece posted to his website this week, questioned President Trump’s attempt to expand deportations.
“Who’s really being removed by ICE tonight?” he pondered. “The child who would’ve discovered the cure for cancer in 2046? The 9th grade nerd who would’ve stopped that Astroid that’s gonna hit us in 2032?”
He pointed to Steve Jobs, the late founder of Apple, as the child of an immigrant and a success story whose likes might be prevented by Mr. Trump’s plans.
“I am grateful for that Muslim migrant baby being born here 70 years ago today,” Mr. Moore wrote.
“Tonight, ICE agents all across America are banging down doors to remove the dangerous ‘illegals.’ But one of them might’ve been the guy who tomorrow was going to help rebuild a children’s playground across town — but he is now in shackles on a military cargo plane on its way to Guatemala,” Mr. Moore said.
The facts Mr. Moore cited, however, test his own conclusions about Mr. Jobs and illegal immigration: Mr. Jobs’ birth father, a Syrian, was in the U.S. as a student, and his birth mother was from Green Bay, Wisconsin. She placed him for adoption.
Mr. Desai said there was another flaw in Mr. Moore’s logic: The people whom Homeland Security is targeting for deportation right now.
He ticked off a list of targets: A Guatemalan charged with multiple counts of child rape; a Haitian charged with three murders; a Salvadoran MS-13 gang member convicted of DWI and aggravated assault; and a Turkish citizen classified as a known or suspected terrorist.
“The Trump Administration will remain focused on putting our own citizens first by mass deporting illegal migrant rapists, murders, and other criminals out of American communities,” Mr. Desai said.
While criminals are the stated priority for deportation, the administration has said that other illegal immigrants are still liable to be deported if agents and officers encounter them.
Homeland Security is also pushing for mass self-deportations, telling those in the country illegally that long-dormant laws will soon be flexed against them to pressure them to leave.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.