Busload of ‘Illegal Invaders’ Was Actually the Gonzaga Basketball Team

A Michigan politician’s claim was debunked quickly.

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Ben Gregg of Gonzaga shoots a three-pointer during practice ahead of the NCAA men's basketball tournament Sweet 16 round at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan, on March 28, 2024. (Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)

On March 27, Matthew Maddock, a Republican member of the Michigan House of Representatives, tweeted two images purporting to show buses of illegal immigrants being loaded at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

“We know this is happening. 100,000’s of illegals are pouring into our country. We know it’s happening in Michigan,” Maddock continued in a follow-up post. “Our own governor is offering money to take them in! Since we can’t trust the #FakeNews to investigate, citizens will. The process of investigating these issues takes time.” 

The investigatory process for this incident actually took little time, however: X users quickly pointed out that the images actually depict the aircraft and buses carrying the Gonzaga University men’s basketball team. The Bulldogs touched down in Motor City on Wednesday evening in preparation for their Friday matchup against Purdue in the Sweet 16 of the 2024 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Maxwell White, a producer with WXYZ Detroit—the city’s local ABC affiliate—pointed out that the plane had arrived from Spokane, Washington, where Gonzaga is located, and later confirmed with Allegiant Air that the flight in question was carrying the team.

Maddock, however, refused to back down from his assertion, responding “sure they are kommie [communist],” and “Sure kommie. Good talking point,” to two users who suggested that the aircraft had transported the Gonzaga team.

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  1. Avatar photo
    John Lewis

    It must be such a super power, being this shameless. Jonah just wrote about this in his column. Maddock finding proof of his narrative is meaningless. Only the claim is important. Maddock could literally walk into a Publix and shout at the banana stand “Illegals are invading the country. This must be investigated.” And if one were to calmly point out that those are actually produce on sale for 2.99 a pound, he’d respond, “that does nothing to refute my claim.”

    This kind of narrative blowhardery is wrecking our collective IQ.

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      squarooticus

      Well, to be fair... there's money in the banana stand.

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      1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

        Ha ha great reference :)

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  2. Cpbogdan

    Facts don’t care about your feelings, Maddock.

    (Seriously - “kommie”? What an idiot.)

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  3. Drussell2337

    Leftists pols make stupid statements like this all the time, but their idiocy doesn't get covered with the same intensity as Rightist idiots.
    If you're not a Leftist, you have to do a better job making sense to appeal beyond the minority base of hard core Rightists in order to win elections. That would imply being more thoughtful, and perhaps, moderate at times.
    Spewing idiocy (copying the Leftist) will not work on a broad basis - that turf is owned by the Left and protected, to some degree, by most of the media complex.

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    1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

      But only the Right has elected a full-on conspiracy theorist as President. I agree with you that both sides have their fringe. The difference is that the fringe on the Right is electable, has been elected, and is the dominant faction in one of the 2 parties.

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    2. Slowdave1

      🙄
      Yeah, the problem here is clearly media bias.🤔

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      1. Drussell2337

        The problem is an idiotic, simplistic approach to politics - both left and right. Media bias is an enabler.

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        1. Slowdave1

          I don't think this guy needed any enabling. ;-)

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          David Burke

          Idiocy in full flower here…

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  4. Avatar photo
    Soniak21

    One shouldn't waste much time asking why MAGA cretins do the things they do: It's a movement that deals in nonsense and conspiracy theories with impunity, and hey... it's a day that ends in Y.

    But I had to ask myself why Maddock would say something SO stupidly unsupported that it was almost guaranteed to land him with egg on his face. Or... was it?

    I'm thinking it was his bad luck that the passengers on that plane happened to be such an identifiable group, on their way to a nationally known event. If it had been a flight full of ordinary passengers... well, I'm sure the facts would still be checkable, and someone would've dug them up, but MAGA would've pulled their usual routine of doubling down and "flooding the zone with shit" so their crowd would would stay sold on the "invaders" story and no one else would seem to have the slam-dunk facts to cut through the crap. (If most people have no clear idea who those ordinary passengers were... who's to say they WEREN'T invaders?)

    Makes me think (and maybe this is obvious...) that Maddock does this kind of thing a hell of a lot, and this is just the rare instance we happened to hear about because he stumbled into something so extremely checkable.

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    1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

      great points. It's amazing how flooding the zone with the shit actually works. I've seen people even on this message board believe some of it. It's just depressing how susceptible we all are to just motivated politicians repeating things over and over.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Chris

    I support their detention but purely for sport betting related purposes


    obviously this is a joke

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    1. Slowdave1

      😂😂😂

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  6. RC

    This is our political class today.

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    1. Randall Briggs

      No, it's our Republican political class. I say that as someone who was a vote-the-party-line Republican from 1972 until 2016.

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      1. Bobbell73

        Me too (no hashtag though), even the same years. Makes me think something must have happened in 2016 but I can't quite put my finger on it.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Dave Casper

    I'll take "Believing Your Own Propaganda" for 400, Alex.

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  8. Jimlafferty1993

    LOL. This is hilarious. On-line clowns and their on-line minions that vote them into office.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Tmcke

    Republicans really don't like America. Thus they are ready at the drop of a hat to find something wrong.

    They need to disband and be replaced by folks who like the USA.

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    1. Slowdave1

      I go around trying to talk my Trumpist acquaintances out of their belief that the Democrats' top priority is to destroy America and I'd say the same to you. We've got to stop straw-manning the opposition. Yes Republicans (and this guy is exhibit #1) are doing ridiculous, stupid things. But they don't hate America or want to destroy it. And taking the flyer idiot like this guy (who makes even the mainline idiot Republicans look just a smidge less dumb) as the example of an average Republican is part of the problem.

      Let's fight better.

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    2. Randall Briggs

      For most of five decades, I viewed the Democrats as the "my country, always wrong" party. What an amazing turnabout to see the GOP seize that mantle, rising to new heights of ignorant malignancy and malignant ignorance.

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      1. Scroop Moth

        As an old Boomer, I admit our country was right to support England and oppose fascists (even while many Republicans continued to be isolationists). Ever since, our government has been wrong about so much so often, and the WWII generation of hardhats, Southerners and anti-communists so deplorably wrong (with or without hindsight) that Democrats stand out as the good guys, especially after 1964. Yes, LBJ and Hillary et.al failed to resist warmongers in their times, but on their own Dems wouldn’t have led America into those valleys of death. Americans after WWII were propagandized into reacting to petition, protest and reform as to treason. Social conservatives are essential components of society, but the America we love today couldn’t be what it is without the ethical and political history written by Democrats, against resistance. The worst backlash came from Boomers themselves, ironically.

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        1. Randall Briggs

          It's odd that you "admit" that we were right to support Britain and oppose Hitler. I thought that that was a given. Then, you say, "[e]ver since, "our government has been wrong about so much so often." That reads like what I was saying (in passing) in the post to which you responded. But then, later, you refer to "the America we love today." So, I'm not sure where you are coming from or what your main idea is. Contrary to your generalization, the WWII generation of Southerners were Democrats. A Republican couldn't get elected dog-catcher in most of the South for the better part of a century.

          Democrats were murderously wrong on race from 1865 to 1965. Even "progressive" Democrats." Wilson segregated the federal work-force. FDR's New Deal was segregated. Progressive Democrats used governmental power to keep African Americans subservient. Those don't sound like "the good guys" to me. At least not where treating Black Americans like genuine citizens was concerned.

          I am making no excuses for today's worthless crop of Republicans. I may never vote for a Republican again. But the fact that today's Republicans are the ones threatening our constitutional order doesn't wipe out the bad ideas of the Democrats in the past.

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          1. Scroop Moth

            True, that's a given. "Admit' was passive-aggressive self-deprication. Look, you don't see the problem with "always." You could have picked from seven adverbs of frequency between always and never, but no, "so much so often" was not what you said. You're correct that Southerners -- and hardhats -- were Democrats. Were. They soon complained, "I didn't leave the Democrats, the Democrats left me." They were so right about that. LBJ purposely walked away from them (as had Eleanor, Adlai and Harry S. before). Starting in 1968, Republican politicians chased after the deplorables in earnest. 2016 wasn't an "amazing turnabout," it was a flowering of 1968, 1972, and 1980. All the devils who had been following the empty wagon of the Republican Party jumped in and took control. I doubt you ever witnessed a Spiro Agnew rally where war protesters were beaten and arrested

            No Democrat idea was as bad as the Laffer Curve or the 1950's doctrine that any amount of commercial regulation whatsoever would lead inevitably to totalitarianism. How about the idea that the police have their hands tied behind their backs, or that "police brutality" is what people say to avoid the consequences of their crimes, or that the exclusionary rule undermines law? Do you miss the gold standard or the fantasy that markets, without government oversight, are fully capable of setting the price of risk? Would you like your grandkids to learn the seven days of creation in biology class? Should disabled people not have access to buildings or children not get taken to pediatricians.

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      2. Jackrabbit McQuivers

        I realize that "my country, always wrong" was the line that Republicans used about Democrats. But it really was never true.

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        1. Randall Briggs

          It was never as simple as that one line. But there was some truth in that line.

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          1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

            I never saw it that way. I heard liberals talking about improving the country, and not being satisfied with status quo insofar as there was still rampant inequality across multiple dimensions. I heard liberals being frustrated that Republicans of the 80s/90s didn't seem that interested in some of those groups.

            I agree there were a few (as there always are) who messaged it wrong.

            But the far greater sin was Republicans who tried to paint Democrats as disliking their own country, when it simply was not true.

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      LBernard

      I would say MAGA instead of Republicans. But those are rapidly becoming the same thing

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        Kizedek

        Too late to even say “rapidly becoming”. Trump is already fully in control of R.N.C.

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  10. Raincheck

    So proud of our politicians.

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