Ballot access expert Richard Winger has sharply criticized The New York Times, accusing the newspaper of mischaracterizing the Libertarian Party’s position on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in its coverage of contentious national debates over federal law enforcement tactics in Minnesota.

The Times’ January 28 article, titled “Shootings Pose a Hard Question for the Right: Who’s a Conservative, Really?” touched on the broader political fallout from recent federal immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis. Specifically, along Mypillow chief executive Mike Lindell who stated he would support “whatever it takes” to stop “unlawful protest”, the Times reported on the stance of Angela McArdle, as quote:

But even among libertarians, there is disagreement. Angela McArdle, a former chair of the Libertarian Party, argued this weekend that the nation was in crisis mode and that now was not a time for libertarians to stick so strictly to their ideology.

“The threat of mass migration is civilizational,” Ms. McArdle wrote on X on Sunday, adding: “It sucks that ICE shoots people sometimes. If we don’t deport illegal aliens and stop Democrat fraud, we will be Canada in less than 10 years.”

In his post titled “New York Times Story Badly Misrepresents Libertarian Party Stance on ICE Behavior in Minnesota,” Winger said the Times article inaccurately presented libertarians’ and the Libertarian Party’s views in a “most deceiving fashion” by emphasizing opinions from individuals not representative of the national Libertarian Party’s official stance.

While the Times piece did highlight libertarian criticism of ICE conduct and quoted legal scholar Walter Olson of the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning policy organization, Winger stated the article omitted an official position by national chair Stephen Nekhaila, which explicitly states that ICE should be abolished. According to Winger, this omission misrepresents where the party stands on federal immigration enforcement.

As debates over ICE and federal law enforcement continue to unfold nationwide, questions about accuracy and representation in news reporting are likely to remain a subject of contention.