From Colleagues to Criminals: How Disinformation Warps Deportation Policy
Kari Lake (far right), a special advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media which oversees Voice of America, joined 'Just the News' hosts Amanda Head and John Solomon to discuss foreign journalists that worked at the VOA using J-1 cultural exchange visas.
The Integrity Project
When Kari Lake, a special advisor to the Agency for Global Media, went on Eric Bolling’s “Real America’s Voice” last month and promised to personally escort certain federal employees to the airport, she wasn’t talking about gang leaders or cartel bosses. Her targets were multilingual journalists—foreign nationals recruited by the U.S. government to work at Voice of America (VOA), the congressionally funded broadcaster created during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda.
To hear Lake tell it, these reporters—many of whom fled censorship or repression at home—are potential spies from “hostile nations” and a threat to national security. Her rhetoric mirrors the tone of the Trump Administration’s original campaign pledge to deport “the worst of the worst” criminals. But the people she’s targeting don’t fit that description. They’re not gang members. They’re not violent offenders. They’re not even accused of breaking U.S. law. They’re here on J-1 cultural exchange visas, doing the jobs they were invited to do.
The Expanding Definition of ‘Criminal’
This is how one form of political disinformation works: start with a claim that is broadly popular—in this case deporting dangerous criminals—and then slowly expand the category beyond the limits described to the original audience. Under Lake’s framing, even invited foreign employees of the U.S. government can be portrayed as security risks.
The rhetorical trick here is in the elasticity of the term “criminal.” Once the public accepts that any noncitizen accused of wrongdoing is fair game for deportation, the threshold for “wrongdoing” can be lowered at will. A missed deadline, a loss of government employment, or even membership in a disfavored profession can become the new basis for criminality and thus removal. This game works up to and including the idea that any foreign born individuals without resident status could logically, eventually, be targeted.
How Disinformation Makes It Plausible
Lake’s allegations against VOA’s J-1 journalists follow a familiar pattern in political disinformation:
• Plant suspicion without proof. Suggest they might be spies from hostile nations.
• Conflate unrelated incidents. Highlight an alleged Russian spy in Poland—who was not a J-1 visa holder.
• Reinforce the disinformation. Appear on ideologically friendly outlets where these claims won’t be challenged, ensuring the “spies among us” narrative circulates efficiently.
Once suspicion takes root, irrational conclusions take over. The very fact that these journalists come from countries like China or Iran—precisely why they were hired to counter state propaganda—becomes the prima facie evidence against them.
They Are Betting the Public Will Not Notice the Shift
Part of the reason this policy drift is politically successful is that “deportation of criminals” remains a powerful winner in American politics. It signals public safety, law and order, and moral clarity—without forcing voters to scrutinize who’s actually being removed. And technically, lumping people guilty of nothing more than overstaying a visa together with violent offenders does not violate the idea that it’s criminals they’re after. It just insults Americans’ intelligence and sense of decency.
If not for Lake’s grandstanding in the case of VOA—targeting foreign journalists who lack a large domestic constituency—this might have been a political free shot: removal without consequence, quickly forgotten without meaningful pushback by the broader public. Her posture reflects a confidence, even an arrogance, that Americans will not care, or may even applaud, the misdirection.
A Dangerous Precedent
There is a real danger that the logic becomes normalized—in this case that the government can redefine “criminal” to mean “politically inconvenient”—and inevitably be applied to other situations. Other situations already include the broad application of antisemitism to support influence over policies at universities, and the characterization of emergencies to support federal action in cities. As it relates to immigration, at VOA, it’s J-1 visa reporters. Tomorrow it could be foreign scientists, international students, or dual citizens in sensitive fields.
In the case of VOA’s displaced journalists, the consequences are immediate: asylum applications, hurried departures, and in some cases, returns to countries where their past reporting for the U.S. government could put them at risk. For the United States, the cost is longer-term but no less severe: a shrinking circle of trusted messengers abroad, and a growing willingness at home to accept suspicion as proof.
A Final Warning
Political disinformation thrives on redefinition. In the hands of its practitioners, “criminal deportation” has gone from a narrowly targeted law enforcement goal to a catch-all justification for purging entire categories of people—regardless of whether they’ve committed crimes. The Kari Lake–VOA case is just one example, but it’s also a warning.
Ms. Lake and others believe that Americans will allow fear-based narratives driven by disinformation to dictate immigration and other policies. If they are correct, we as a nation will have opened a Pandora's Box that may be very difficult to close.
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