Trump admin. responds to NYT article about deported kidnapper

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security derided The New York Times for glossing over the criminal history of Nascimento Blair, an illegal immigrant deported to Jamaica years after he was convicted of dealing drugs and kidnapping a teenage boy. 

In a statement to The Christian Post, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the DHS, stressed that Blair was an illegal immigrant and a convicted kidnapper. The Trump administration official also noted that the 44-year-old had received a final order of removal in 2008. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not arrest Blair on the 2008 order until Feb. 3 of this year, according to a March 31 press release from the department. He was arrested in New York City and was subsequently deported from the United States on Feb. 27. 

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

According to ICE’s press release, Blair entered the U.S. as a nonimmigrant on March 4, 2004, and subsequently violated the terms of his admission. 

McLaughlin blamed the Biden-Harris administration’s “open-border policies” for the delay in Blair’s removal and his release onto the streets of New York. The DHS official praised President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for enforcing immigration policies that led to Blair’s arrest and removal.

“President Trump and Secretary Noem have made it clear that we are prioritizing arresting and deporting the worst of the worst. That includes convicted kidnappers,” McLaughlin told CP.

The New York Times did not respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment. This article will be updated if a comment is received. 

As the Times reported in an April 24 article about Blair, titled, “21 Years Later, Deported Back to a ‘Home’ He Barely Knew.” The paper said Blair had been “rebuilding his life and seeking redemption.” It noted that he had earned college degrees and was taking classes at Columbia University. He’d also started a business and had a fiancée.

However, years earlier, the Jamaican national had run an illegal marijuana sales operation in the New York suburbs when he was 24. Blair started dealing small amounts of marijuana to co-workers, working his way up to dealing about five pounds, which the outlet noted is worth thousands of dollars a week. 

“I got caught up selling weed and fell in love with the money,” Blair told the Times. “I strayed from my soccer dreams.”

According to the Times, Blair’s dreams were “shattered” on Oct. 11, 2005, when an 18-year-old who lived in the same building as the Jamaican national broke into his apartment and stole half a pound of marijuana and money.

Blair didn’t want to involve the police because he wanted to avoid a drug possession charge, as the outlet reported. The Mount Vernon Police Department arrested Blair on Oct. 12, 2005, for first-degree kidnapping, a crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The Jamaican national was accused of pistol-whipping the 18-year-old, driving him to an apartment, and demanding a $5,000 ransom from the victim’s family. 

According to prosecutors, police found the teenager tied up in the apartment. In addition to the teenager, police found two handguns and two pounds of marijuana at the apartment, according to the Times. 

In comments to the Times, Blair denied that he held the teenager against his will and denied beating the boy and tying him up. 

After his release from prison in 2020, Blair assumed ICE would pick him up for deportation, but they never did. The outlet speculated that ICE allowed Blair to remain in the country because it didn’t consider him a “priority” for deportation at the time. 

Immigration officials have also previously expressed frustration over New York’s sanctuary laws that prevent agencies like ICE from deporting criminal migrants.

“I want to thank The New York Times for covering the dangers and lunacy of open border policies that allowed an illegal alien convicted kidnapper to be loose in our communities,” McLaughlin added. “We are restoring commonsense to our immigration system.”