Illegal Immigrant on CBS: In 20 Years, We'll Run America!
On CBS’s "Sunday Morning" reporter Martha Teichner narrated a piece sympathetic to Hispanic immigrants, and in particular, illegal immigrants. She profiled three Hispanic people, two of whom initially came to the country illegally. One illegal immigrant she profiled was defiant of his status, and sounded almost threatening when he said: "In 20 years, we are going to run the country. Right now we're running the cities. So little by little, we're running the show. Little by little. So this sleeping giant is already awakened."
The piece omitted some crucial elements, first there was no mention of societal costs of illegal immigration, such as health care and education costs, crime, particularly gang crime like MS-13, and second, Teichner ignored the overall question of the appropriateness of people illegally crossing into America to influence the democratic process. How many nations would allow non citizens, much less people with no legal authority to be in the country, to influence the outcomes of elections and policy debates? The answer is not many, so why, then, should the United States allow this? In fact the only anti illegal immigration voice in the piece was a sound bite from Congressman Virgil Goode:
Virgil Goode, Virginia Representative: "The position of the Senate needs to be there will be no amnesty period. If we took that position, many of those here illegally now would march on back to Mexico."
The highpoint of Teichner’s piece was the fact that she mentioned an actual poll that finds that almost 90% of Americans feel that illegal immigration is a problem:
Martha Teichner: "Today, an estimated 12 million are here illegally. A CBS/News New York Times poll found that nearly nine out of 10 Americans consider illegal immigration either a serious or very serious problem..."
Illegal immigration is a serious issue, and reporters ought to be reporting all the facts, benefits and costs on the subject, not just choosing to highlight illegal immigrants, who invoke our sympathy while failing to report the societal consequences of illegal immigration.
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