The Mainstream Media and DREAMERS That Aren’t So Dreamy

Despite significant evidence that voters don’t want to reward immigration violators for their bad behavior, the mainstream media insists on pushing the false narrative that every young immigration violator is a genius-in-waiting, whose very presence has made an indelible contribution to American life.

But when subjected to any kind of scrutiny, that narrative tends to fall apart. The story of Randolph Angulo, reported by Florida’s Treasure Coast Palm is a case in point.

Mr. Angulo is a native of Peru who is facing deportation. He came to the U.S. in 2014. In 2018, he graduated from a taxpayer-funded public high school. He has enrolled at Indian River Community College, a taxpayer-funded public institution. And hopes to become a dentist.

The Palm states that Mr. Angulo would be a “’dreamer’ if the oft-proposed DREAM Act, which would grant residency status to qualifying immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors, had ever become law. Instead, he had a work authorization, a Social Security number and had applied for permanent residency along with his mother, who is still in Peru but is married to a native of Puerto Rico — that is, a U.S. citizen.”

The clear implication is that the U.S. is somehow failing people like Mr. Angulo because it offered them DACA, but still won’t enact the DREAM Act. Heck, it won’t even give them a green card when their mother is married to a U.S. citizen.

But it’s obvious to anyone who is familiar with the basics of U.S. immigration law that the Palm has left out some key facts. It never tells the reader how Mr. Angulo entered the country or why. And those are both critical pieces of information.

Based on the limited information the Palm actually provided, it looks like Mr. Angulo’s mother contracted a questionable marriage with a U.S. citizen and attempted to get her son a green card as the step-child of her citizen spouse.

If that is, indeed, the case, then Mr. Angulo isn’t the victim of an error by his immigration lawyer, as the Palm claims. And he isn’t even a “dreamer” or a “DACA kid.” He’s just an ordinary immigrant that USCIS suspected of being engaged in a scheme to circumvent U.S. immigration laws. Hence, the government finding, referenced by the Palm, that Mr. Angulo, his mother and her husband aren’t an “actual family unit” – and the accompanying deportation order.

So, what’s the moral of this story? It isn’t what the Palm would have its readers believe: That the Trump administration’s immigration policy is “starving the nation” of the talents of people like Mr. Angulo. Rather, it is that broad, happy-sounding terms like “dreamers” and “DACA kids” are often used to obscure repeated and ongoing immigration violations by someone the elites in the mainstream press deem worthy of free pass for breaking our immigration laws.

But the United States is having enough trouble trying to educate, house and provide health care for its own young people. So, why should Mr. Angulo get a pass for repeatedly breaking the law when so many hard-working young adults in the U.S. don’t?

The answer is that he shouldn’t. It’s nice that Mr. Angulo did well in school and that he wants to be a dentist. But becoming a productive member of society and obtaining the tools to make one’s own way in life are the bare minimum that we expect from young members of our communities. And it is time that we started requiring that foreign nationals who wish to reside here start showing the same level of respect for the rule of law that we demand from fellow Americans.