Biden Team Under Fire: Criminal Aliens Slip Through as Outrage Grows

Paul Riverbank, 11/18/2025Explores heated debate on immigration, crime, and media bias following recent violent incidents.

Let’s start in Plano. It could have been any ordinary weekday. A local woman was out for her jog in Bob Woodruff Park. Her shoes pounding the trail, she might have noticed the faint trill of birds. Then, police say, things turned violent—a seventeen-year-old, Sergio Noe de Nova Duarte, approached, hammer in hand. The moment spiraled into a struggle. Witnesses relayed later that they saw her on the ground, blood darkening her sleeve. Duct tape was found nearby, the kind you see at hardware stores, suddenly more chilling. Detective Alexandra Cole voiced what many thought: “Given the nature of this incident, things might have ended far worse.”

Duarte, who came to the U.S. from Mexico, wasn’t new to law enforcement. Early this year, his record already included burglary and larceny. Yet, after those arrests, he was released by federal authorities with a notice to appear at a hearing—scheduled for two years from now. Law enforcement officials, and especially figures in the Department of Homeland Security, appeared visibly frustrated by what they characterized as a system at the breaking point. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin went on record: “This individual should never have been free to terrorize this community.”

The Plano attack was not, by any means, an isolated case. If anything, it’s the tip of a larger debate—one that remains, as ever, tangled in bureaucracy and political rhetoric. After local prosecution wraps up, Duarte’s future is nearly certain: he’ll go into federal custody, deportation looming.

Meanwhile, a different narrative was unfolding, this time with a Russian passport and a decades-old criminal history. Roman Antatolevich Surovtsev’s life veers between continents and controversies. In a CNN piece, readers were told about Surovtsev’s journey—how he escaped the Soviet Union, how he tried to carve out a life in the United States, how he has children. But the story wove through these personal notes before taking up the fact that, at nineteen, Surovtsev served over a decade for armed carjacking.

Dig deeper, though, and the Department of Homeland Security presents a dramatically longer list: assault with a deadly weapon, stolen goods, more carjackings, drug charges. According to a spokesperson, the network “runs interference for violent felons.” It wasn’t just a journalistic omission; for many, it felt like a pattern of softening hard truths.

There’s a legal fight as well. With Ukraine on edge, attorneys say the U.S. planned to deport eighty-three people, including Surovtsev, most with lengthy records, back to a country under threat of renewed warfare. Lawyers Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennett argue deportees face forced conscription or worse. “Conscripting them straight into a war zone is a potential death sentence,” they told reporters, the anxiety almost palpable.

So, why the fractures in coverage? It seems the story you hear depends on which part gets told first—the criminal record or the human cost. If it’s the latter, all too often the details of charges remain tucked away, surfacing only if the reader makes it halfway down the page. Newsrooms and officials point fingers: one side accuses of whitewashing, the other of fear-mongering.

Still, in the background, the message from Washington hasn’t budged. Current critics argue that enforcement under President Biden is allowing flawed cases to slip between the cracks. DHS pointedly contrasted with prior administrations: “Break the law, face the consequences. That wasn’t just a slogan—it was policy.”

The American public, meanwhile, is left to do the work of sifting. There’s a lot at stake—safety, immigration reform, the reliability of what we read. Sometimes, the story lies not in the reporting itself but in what gets edited out. And, if we’re honest, the way these tales are pieced together can influence more than a few minds come election day.

Two recent events—one in a suburban Texas park, the other a convoluted deportation saga—have flung the debate over crime and immigration back into the national spotlight, yet what gets lost, sometimes intentionally, is the story behind the headlines.Let’s start in Plano. It could have been any ordinary weekday. A local woman was out for her jog in Bob Woodruff Park. Her shoes pounding the trail, she might have noticed the faint trill of birds. Then, police say, things turned violent—a seventeen-year-old, Sergio Noe de Nova Duarte, approached, hammer in hand. The moment spiraled into a struggle. Witnesses relayed later that they saw her on the ground, blood darkening her sleeve. Duct tape was found nearby, the kind you see at hardware stores, suddenly more chilling. Detective Alexandra Cole voiced what many thought: “Given the nature of this incident, things might have ended far worse.”Duarte, who came to the U.S. from Mexico, wasn’t new to law enforcement. Early this year, his record already included burglary and larceny. Yet, after those arrests, he was released by federal authorities with a notice to appear at a hearing—scheduled for two years from now. Law enforcement officials, and especially figures in the Department of Homeland Security, appeared visibly frustrated by what they characterized as a system at the breaking point. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin went on record: “This individual should never have been free to terrorize this community.”The Plano attack was not, by any means, an isolated case. If anything, it’s the tip of a larger debate—one that remains, as ever, tangled in bureaucracy and political rhetoric. After local prosecution wraps up, Duarte’s future is nearly certain: he’ll go into federal custody, deportation looming.Meanwhile, a different narrative was unfolding, this time with a Russian passport and a decades-old criminal history. Roman Antatolevich Surovtsev’s life veers between continents and controversies. In a CNN piece, readers were told about Surovtsev’s journey—how he escaped the Soviet Union, how he tried to carve out a life in the United States, how he has children. But the story wove through these personal notes before taking up the fact that, at nineteen, Surovtsev served over a decade for armed carjacking.Dig deeper, though, and the Department of Homeland Security presents a dramatically longer list: assault with a deadly weapon, stolen goods, more carjackings, drug charges. According to a spokesperson, the network “runs interference for violent felons.” It wasn’t just a journalistic omission; for many, it felt like a pattern of softening hard truths.There’s a legal fight as well. With Ukraine on edge, attorneys say the U.S. planned to deport eighty-three people, including Surovtsev, most with lengthy records, back to a country under threat of renewed warfare. Lawyers Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennett argue deportees face forced conscription or worse. “Conscripting them straight into a war zone is a potential death sentence,” they told reporters, the anxiety almost palpable.So, why the fractures in coverage? It seems the story you hear depends on which part gets told first—the criminal record or the human cost. If it’s the latter, all too often the details of charges remain tucked away, surfacing only if the reader makes it halfway down the page. Newsrooms and officials point fingers: one side accuses of whitewashing, the other of fear-mongering.Still, in the background, the message from Washington hasn’t budged. Current critics argue that enforcement under President Biden is allowing flawed cases to slip between the cracks. DHS pointedly contrasted with prior administrations: “Break the law, face the consequences. That wasn’t just a slogan—it was policy.”The American public, meanwhile, is left to do the work of sifting. There’s a lot at stake—safety, immigration reform, the reliability of what we read. Sometimes, the story lies not in the reporting itself but in what gets edited out. And, if we’re honest, the way these tales are pieced together can influence more than a few minds come election day.