Lauren Jane Morris, a 38-year-old British-born woman, was taken into custody by ICE agents outside the Spokane County Courthouse on February 11. Her family says she is a lawful permanent resident and a mother to a 16-month-old American citizen. The story, as initially told, had all the ingredients for a liberal outrage cycle: a young mother, a baby, courthouse steps, federal agents. Then the details came out.

ICE told the Daily Mail that Morris is an "illegal alien from the United Kingdom who has five assault convictions." As recently as August 6, 2024, a Spokane County judge sentenced her to 24 months for fourth-degree felony assault. Public records also show prior convictions for criminal trespassing and violating a restraining order.

An ICE spokesperson made the agency's position clear, "Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face consequences."

Morris will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. Her immigration hearing is scheduled for February 26 in Tacoma.

The story the media wanted to tell

The initial wave of coverage, particularly from Seattle's KING 5, painted a picture designed to generate sympathy. A mother grabbed by federal agents while her toddler watched. Her family insisting she had lived in the country since she was 15. The implication was unmistakable: this was an overreach, a heartless bureaucracy snatching a woman from her child.

What KING 5 apparently did not report was the five assault convictions. Or the criminal trespassing. Or the restraining order violation.

Jason Rantz, host of The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red radio, called it out during his Friday morning broadcast:

"This is what they do. Perhaps, even with the details of five convictions, some would not support removal."

He added that the fifth conviction was "very obviously pertinent information that KING 5 couldn't be bothered to report."

This is the pattern. A local outlet runs the sympathetic framing first. Social media amplifies it. Anti-ICE critics rush to the defense. And by the time the full picture emerges, the narrative has already calcified. Corrections never travel as far as the original outrage.

A complicated immigration history

Morris's path to the United States is not the straightforward story her family presents. According to her 2008 visa petition, she moved to the U.S. around February 2004. She married James Mellen on October 28, 2007, in Montana. A marriage-based visa application followed in February 2008. That visa was approved in June 2009, and her residency application was approved in February 2012.

So she had legal residency at one point. ICE now calls her an illegal alien. Something changed between 2012 and the present, and the public record does not make clear what. A felony assault conviction is one obvious candidate for jeopardizing permanent resident status, and Morris has five assault convictions on her record.

Her family insists she was leaving a probation meeting related to a "since-rescinded restraining order" when ICE picked her up. They want you to focus on the courthouse steps. ICE wants you to focus on why she was on probation in the first place.

Financial dependency and legal disputes

The backstory grows more complicated. In 2021, Morris sued her ex-husband Mellen and her immigration co-sponsor Casey Duncan, alleging they failed to provide the financial support they committed to when sponsoring her immigration status. Her court filings revealed her highest annual income between 2014 and 2020 was $9,883. Her lowest was $1,999, in 2020.

Morris's attorneys stated that she, Mellen, and Duncan "amicably resolved this matter through negotiated resolution." The case was dismissed with prejudice in October 2021.

It remains unclear when Morris and Mellen divorced. It is also unclear what Morris does for a living. She currently rents a house in Spokane valued at $277,000. What she pays in rent is unknown.

None of this means a person deserves no sympathy. But it does mean the story is far more complex than "mother torn from baby by heartless feds." And complexity is exactly what the initial coverage was designed to eliminate.

The media's missing ingredient: context

There is a reason certain ICE detention stories go viral and others don't. The ones that travel are the ones that can be reduced to a single image: a mother, a child, a uniform. Context is the enemy of that image. Five assault convictions are context. A felony sentence handed down six months ago is context. A pattern of criminal behavior stretching across years is context.

When a news outlet omits all of that, it is not reporting. It is casting.

The liberal framework for immigration enforcement requires that every detained person be a victim and every agent be a villain. It cannot survive contact with a case where the detained individual has a violent criminal record longer than most people's resumes. So the record disappears from the story. The audience never learns it existed. And anyone who raises it later gets dismissed as changing the subject.

Rantz is right that some people would oppose Morris's removal even with the full record in front of them. That is their prerogative. But the public deserves to make that judgment with all the facts, not just the ones that fit a predetermined narrative.

What happens next

Morris's immigration hearing is set for Thursday, February 26, in Tacoma. ICE has stated plainly that she will remain in custody pending removal proceedings. Her family will continue to argue she is a lawful permanent resident. ICE will continue to point to five assault convictions and an illegal immigration status.

The daughter's whereabouts remain unknown. ICE did not respond to questions about the child.

Washington State will likely produce more stories like this one. It is a jurisdiction where local leaders have spent years building walls between their communities and federal immigration enforcement, and where media outlets have internalized the assumption that enforcement itself is the scandal. When the facts cooperate, they run the story. When the facts don't, they run the story anyway and leave the facts out.

Five assault convictions. One felony sentence last August. A criminal trespassing conviction. A restraining order violation. All of it publicly available. None of it initially reported.

That tells you everything about who the media is protecting, and it isn't the public.