{"id":21585,"date":"2019-06-12T16:09:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T20:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21585"},"modified":"2019-06-13T12:26:11","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T16:26:11","slug":"cnn-flat-out-distorts-acting-ice-directors-remarks-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/12\/cnn-flat-out-distorts-acting-ice-directors-remarks-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN Flat-Out Distorts Acting ICE Director\u2019s Remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last September, the Columbia Journalism Review (the preeminent journal covering the media) ran a story with headline, \u201cMost Americans say they have lost trust in the media<\/a>.\u201d The report was based on a survey conducted by the Knight Foundation and the Gallup polling organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases, the media don\u2019t blatantly lie. They simply\nselect facts that support their own biases, and omit facts that do not fit\ntheir narrative. There\u2019s a reason why witnesses at trials are required to swear\n\u201cto tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth.\u201d Much like the old\nbaseball adage, \u201ca half swing is a whole strike,\u201d a half truth is the same as a\nwhole lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An email that popped up in my inbox from CNN on Wednesday both piqued my interest, and affirmed the public\u2019s mistrust of the news media. The subject line read: \u201cCNN – Acting ICE Director: Economic aid to Central American Countries would reduce number of migrants.\u201d The body of the email included a transcript of Acting ICE Director Mark Morgan\u2019s interview on CNN\u2019s Newsroom<\/em> broadcast. It sounded interesting, so I read it. Twice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The reason I read it twice was because nowhere in the transcript could I find anything that Morgan said that supported CNN\u2019s assertion that he believes economic aid to Central American countries would reduce the number of migrants. To be fair, he didn\u2019t say it wouldn\u2019t; but nowhere in his remarks did Morgan say that economic aid was the cure, or even a partial cure, for the migration crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interviewer, Poppy Harlow, came loaded with a \u201cgotcha\u201d\nquestion for Morgan. The Trump administration recently cut economic aid to the\nprimary migrant-sending countries, both because it was the only leverage they\nhave to get those governments to do more to address conditions in those\ncountries, and because the economic aid clearly isn\u2019t helping the people who\nare fleeing those countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interest of presenting the whole truth<\/em>, to follow are interviewer Poppy Harlow\u2019s exact questions and Morgan\u2019s exact answers regarding the efficacy of economic aid in reducing migration: (You can also watch the interview here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harlow: You testified before the senate Homeland Security\nCommittee back in 2016 and you said, quote, there are definite push factors,\nweak economies, weak government, violence, family reunification and economic\nquality. So you point to the economy as a big driver of those people to the\nUnited States. But as you know, just a few months ago, the Trump administration\ncut all economic aid to the northern triangle countries. And I just wonder if\nyou’re worried that that is going to make the situation worse and if that has\nexacerbated the — the crisis. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORGAN: So, from a law enforcement perspective, if you\nlook at that, with the information intelligence shows that they are coming here\nlargely for economic equality and then to some degree for family reunification.\nAnd what we’ve shown, regardless of what’s happening or not in the northern\ntriangle countries, the numbers continue to exceed. And they really continue to\nexceed because of the incentives. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now — and the cartels are making sure that — that\neveryone in the northern triangle countries know, if you grab a child and you\ncome to our borders, you will be allowed into the United States, and largely to\nremain there untouched. They know that. That’s what’s driving them to come, the\noverwhelming. But right now 75 percent — up to 75 percent of the people coming\nacross are family units or unaccompanied children.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see anything\nin Morgan\u2019s response that indicates a belief that economic aid reduced\nmigration? Neither did I. In fact, he is pretty emphatic that what is driving\nmass migration is that showing up with a child in tow pretty much guarantees\nthat you will be allowed to \u201cremain [here]untouched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not deterred by the\nlack of the desired response, Harlow tries again. So, again, here is exactly\nwhat she asked and exactly what he answered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HARLOW: Except — so I — I hear you. But when you talk\nabout sort of what the data shows, our colleague, Jake Tapper, reported just a\nfew months ago, based on State Department data, that in El Salvador, for\nexample, because of the aid you had the violence go down, the homicides go down.\nThe Global Leadership Coalition, which is retired military leaders and\ndiplomats and members of Congress say that not only did the aid work, but it\ndelivered a return on investment for the American taxpayer. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would more economic aid to the northern triangle\ncountries be helpful to you? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORGAN: For — from my perspective, of course. Just like\nthe governor of Mexico, even though the governor of Mexico, for decades, has\nrefused to step up and do what they said, we still continue to work with them.\nAnd we should still continue to work with the — the governments of the\nnorthern triangle countries to help them in any way they can. Absolutely. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that’s not going to address the pull factors that our\nbroken asylum laws are really largely responsible for these individuals coming\nto our country. It’s our own laws that are producing the incentives and pull\nfactors to come.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time Morgan\nagrees that, in the abstract, economic aid to the Northern Triangle countries\nwould be \u201chelpful,\u201d and that we should \u201ccontinue to work with\u201d and \u201chelp [these\ncountries]in any way we can.\u201d Still, far short of a definitive declaration\nthat doing so would stem the mass migration. In the context of his entire\nstatement, it is clear that Morgan is saying that under the right\ncircumstances, economic aid could be beneficial to addressing some of the\neconomic push factors of mass migration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, even more\nimportantly, in the very next breath, Morgan does make a definitive assertion.\nAbout as unambiguously as it can possibly be stated, Morgan asserts that it is\nthe pull factors \u2013 namely our own laws \u2013 that are the driving force behind the\nmigration crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I\u2019m umpiring\nthis game, I\u2019m calling CNN\u2019s headline a half swing and a whole lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last September, the Columbia Journalism Review (the preeminent journal covering the media) ran a story with headline, \u201cMost Americans say they have lost trust in the media.\u201d The report was based on a survey conducted by the Knight Foundation and the Gallup polling organization. In most cases, the media don\u2019t blatantly lie. They simply select<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5079],"tags":[5179,623,1524,275],"yst_prominent_words":[3836,5594,5847,5846,5837,5835,5848,5839,3006,3175,5833,5838,5845,5834,5841,3804,3514,5836,5840,3701],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21585"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21596,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585\/revisions\/21596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21585"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}