An article about fear as a weapon, a fabricated letter, and the propaganda of power
It begins with a letter. Light blue ink, an angry message threatening to shoot Donald Trump at one of his rallies with a rifle. Sender: allegedly an "illegal immigrant." That’s how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announces it - publicly, proudly, dramatically. She displays the letter, publishes a photo of the alleged perpetrator on X, and the White House spreads the news immediately. The enemy image is set: the migrant as threat, as terrorist, as the embodiment of evil.
But just a few days later, the story collapses like a house of cards. Ramon Morales Reyes, the accused man, according to investigators, neither has the necessary language skills nor handwriting that matches the letter. The authorities who asked him for a sample concluded: the threat is not credible. The letter, they found, most likely did not come from him. Why Noem still took to the big stage, why DHS released a press statement, remains unanswered. What remains is propaganda.
It brings back memories of a case that was constructed in a similarly deliberate way: Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, whom the Trump administration publicly branded as the “third highest-ranking leader of MS-13” – without a single piece of evidence. Once again, stories were fabricated, threats invented, narratives built from nothing. Through our investigation, the case was uncovered, brought to public attention, and completely dismantled. My original article can be found here:
👉 https://kaizen-blog.org/en/ein-kleiner-sieg/
The mechanism is always the same: there is no investigation, only staging. The logic is not ruled by the rule of law, but by political usability. Morales Reyes is currently sitting in a jail in Wisconsin - not due to proven guilt, but likely because he was to testify as a victim in a violent crime trial. His attorney, Kime Abduli, explains plainly that her client never attended school, cannot write or read - neither in Spanish nor in English. Nevertheless, his name is now out there, linked to a murder threat he could not possibly have written.
The question that remains: what happens when the state itself becomes the source of disinformation? When ministers like Kristi Noem publicly handle false claims as if they were political tools? When White House media channels uncritically spread what clearly hasn’t been verified?
It is a rhetoric that recalls dark times - a language that borders on political defamation, fed by mistrust, authoritarian imagery, and the deliberate association of origin with danger. What Noem is doing here is not security policy. It is theater. A production for the radicalized public that eagerly absorbs the myth of the criminal foreigner - even when there is no substance behind it.
And therein lies the real danger. When political power begins working with fabricated stories, when people are turned into tools to sow fear, when institutions like ICE or DHS become propaganda instruments, the point is reached where democracy must not only be defended, but saved.
Kristi Noem did not prevent an attack. She harmed a human being - presumably knowingly. It is up to us to name that. Just as we did with Villatoro Santos. Because truth is not always loud, but it remains. And it does not forget.
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