You can see how this happened, and even understand why. When reality is upside-down, people act upside-down.

An Assistant Principal in Rhode Island solicited funds from her colleagues to help pay off human traffickers who were extorting money from a child they smuggled to the United States–and who, apparently, was living without any adult caretaker–out of a sense of compassion.

It never occurred to her to get law enforcement, or child services for that matter, involved. Instead, she asked her colleagues to all chip in to pay off the “coyotes” who smuggled the child across the border.

This is, of course, insane. But it is also the inevitable consequence of an ideology that approves of people being smuggled into the United States and that disdains the idea that children require adult supervision.

Nothing in the emails indicates that law enforcement was ever contacted. Rather, the assistant principal opted to try and fulfill the demands of the human traffickers:

“He only owes $2000 out of the $5000, but if he does not pay that by February 1, they will kill his family in… pic.twitter.com/PGarfHf31z

— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) June 28, 2023

I truly believe that it never occurred to her that she was participating in and helping fund a human trafficking ring, or for that matter leaving a student in a situation where there was no responsible adult was totally unacceptable.

When they come illegal, they usually give them a time frame to make a payment of $5000 dollors to those, who bring them illegal. Our student has been working extra hours to pay them and to support his family in Guatemala. Not ignoring that this kid lives here by himself and has no support from anyone. He only owes $2000 out of the $5000, but if he does not pay that by February 1, they will kill his family in his country. He works so hard and does not sleep trying to get that money together, but he is so stressed out. We want to reach out to everyone to ask for help. IF we can get people to donate whatever you guys can to help him out with this debt that will be great. He comes late some time because he works until late but we don’t want him to drop out of school. We want to support him with anything that we can.

Schools, after all, are assuming more and more responsibility for the mental well-being of students, and are committed to the idea that children know what is good for them and should be affirmed in that belief. Given this ideological commitment, why would anybody even consider the idea that this request was totally inappropriate even occur to them?

There are so many red flags in this story — how is it possible that an assistant principal would think it appropriate to fundraise for a human trafficking operation instead of alerting law enforcement?

— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) June 28, 2023

Smuggling people into the United States is these days seen as a positive good and ardently to be desired. The Biden Administration itself engages in these practices, and even ships unaccompanied kids around the country, where they often wind up performing dangerous jobs in order to pay off the coyotes who transported them to the border.

The Administration freely admits that they have “lost” tens of thousands of them, having simply abandoned them in random places around the country. Is it any wonder that government employees such as this Assistant Principal think it is normal to pick up some of the slack in the process?

When the whole story blew up in right-wing media, employees and a School Board member were disgusted by the PR disaster, not the behavior itself.

PDE also received an email dated January 31 from school board member Ty’Relle Stephens that appeared to claim angry members of the community were “right-wing extremists.” He also discussed how he would try to “control the narrative.” He stated in the email:

“I am writing to follow up about PR damage control regarding the Coyote email. The media has portrayed PPSD staff as knowingly aiding and abetting human traffickers, which has incensed right-wing extremists. At this time, if we are able to say unequivocally that that is not the case, let’s make it happen. If we are able to say PPSD staff need more training surrounding illegal immigration, let’s make it happen.”

The Tucker Carlson Tonight talk show and other news media has reached out to me as you can see below. I have declined to comment because I’m waiting for RIDE/PPSD to draft a response to control the narrative. But I’m getting tired of PPSD always in the news for all the wrong reasons. What can we do to turn things around? Please advise.

Despite the board member’s comments, some staff of the school did appear to know that paying off the student’s debt was abetting human traffickers, according to the guidance counselor’s email.

“Control the Narrative” is, of course, the sole impulse of everybody involved. Nobody is outraged about what happened, but only that they have gotten a black eye because of “right-wing extremists.”

It’s not human trafficking that is the problem; it’s people who object to it that must be rebutted.

This is all perverse in the extreme.

It’s not that the student is not in a tight spot. Assuming the story is true they indeed are and need help. But who on Earth thinks that some random school employees are in a reasonable position to give the appropriate help, and why are they indifferent to the fact that this situation is created by horrendous and damaging policies that they are perpetuating?

This is not a matter for them to “solve,” because they are in no real position to do anything but perpetuate the problem. They should get law enforcement and child services involved.

But because we have so distorted “The Narrative” on illegal immigration, it literally didn’t occur to anyone that this situation was anything but a problem that a bit of fundraising could solve, like friends raising money to help with somebody’s vet bills.