{"id":22908,"date":"2020-05-04T09:29:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T13:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=22908"},"modified":"2020-05-04T10:25:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T14:25:03","slug":"media-bias-trump-executive-order-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/05\/04\/media-bias-trump-executive-order-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Interactive Blog: NPR Examines U.S. Immigration Policy in the Context of the President\u2019s Immigration Executive Order \u2013 Rate This Clip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>National Public Radio\u2019s (NPR) Ailsa Chang recently interviewed U.S. immigration history professor Erika Lee from the University of Minnesota about \u201canti-immigrant sentiments\u201d and how they have historically been tied to times of hardship, including \u201cdisease, economic downturns and war.\u201d This interview was conducted in the context of the recent presidential Executive Order (EO) temporarily pausing issuance of about <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2020\/04\/22\/analysis-less-than-10-percent-of-immigration-affected-by-trump-order\/\" target=\"_blank\">ten percent<\/a> new immigrant green cards. The order is in response to the \u201c<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/video\/2020\/mar\/23\/invisible-enemy-trump-says-he-is-wartime-president-in-coronavirus-battle-video\" target=\"_blank\">invisible enemy<\/a>\u201d of the coronavirus pandemic and a  historic economic downturn which has resulted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/30\/us-weekly-jobless-claims.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">30 million<\/a> Americans being laid off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, listen to the five minute <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/04\/22\/841925686\/immigration-crackdowns-are-not-unusual-in-trying-times\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">interview.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, I\u2019ve offered some commentary about the\ninterview itself, focusing on whether or not it fairly educates the public\nabout historic immigration patterns or the rationale and effects of the recent\nEO. Finally, I\u2019ll ask you to do the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Lee comments that the President\u2019s actions are right out of the \u201cxenophobic playbook,\u201d that contains messaging about immigrants bringing disease, immigrants taking jobs and the need to protect the American worker. She notes that this has happened both historically and \u201cin recent years as well,\u201d yet fails to point to a single event in the last 50 years where any of her examples have actually produced a reduction, or pause, in immigration in the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The 2008 economic crash sent the stock market plunging and resulted in Americans seeing their real estate values and retirement accounts tank. That didn\u2019t trigger a reduction in immigration.\u00a0 <\/li><li>In the last 20 years, we\u2019ve had global pandemics of influenza, SARS and Ebola. None of these triggered a pause or reduction in immigration. <\/li><li>Lee refuses to acknowledge that a real problem even exists, apparently shrugging off the 30 million unemployed Americans and worldwide pandemic as a gimmick used by the President to harness immigration as a political issue. Academia can be somewhat insulating, but Lee can\u2019t possibly be blind to the economic agony around here and the recent deaths of more than <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/news\/495224-us-surpasses-60000-deaths-due-to-coronavirus\">60,000<\/a> of her fellow countrymen. And even those conditions haven\u2019t led to a significant reduction in immigration. President Trump\u2019s EO will temporarily affect 10 percent, or less, of the more than one million people admitted to the U.S. each year as lawful permanent residents. That\u2019s not even a short shut-down of our immigration assembly line.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Chang then raises the issue of the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic \u2013 the closest comparison we have to the coronavirus today \u2013 and whether or not it caused any reduction in immigration. Lee answers that immigration had already dropped off sharply due to World War One and loss of transatlantic ferry travel, but the U.S. still allowed in 110,000 immigrants in 1918.\u00a0 Lee is pushing a false narrative\u2013 either intentionally our out of her ignorance of the presidnet\u2019s EO \u2013 that we have somehow suddenly shut down immigration. What she fails to understand is that the EO does not affect foreign guestworkers <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/04\/22\/trumps-immigration-ban-excludes-temporary-workers\/\" target=\"_blank\">at all<\/a>, meaning that tens of thousands of them will still enter the U.S. despite the pandemic and record unemployment. And immigrant admissions, for this year alone \u2013 when green card issuance inevitably returns to normal \u2013 will likely best the 1918 numbers by ten-fold, surpassing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/05\/17\/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes\/\">on<\/a><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"e (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/05\/17\/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes\/\" target=\"_blank\">e<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/05\/17\/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes\/\"> million<\/a> admissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lee also conveniently treats the President\u2019s decision to halt travel into the U.S., and temporarily pause immigration, as a uniquely American reaction to the current situation. This is preposterous, and the exact opposite is true. Virtually <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/travel\/article\/coronavirus-travel-bans\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">every nation<\/a> on earth has curtailed immigrant admissions because of the contagious nature of this virus. And the vast majority of the world\u2019s countries \u2013 outside of Western Europe and North America \u2013 regularly close their borders in response to all types of perceived threats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I found most inexcusable about the interview was both Chang and Lee\u2019s characterization of the well-documented fact that American workers regularly lose jobs to immigrants and guestworkers as some kind of \u201curban legend.\u201d\u00a0 Any fourth grader with a computer could have done a quick Google or YouTube search and found videos like <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=c_IPCBVk4-M\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> where Leo Perrero, a real American, offers his first-hand testimonial of how he was fired from his high-tech job at Disney and forced to train his foreign guest worker replacement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was not an educational interview for NPR\u2019s listeners, but rather a one-sided indoctrination driven by Chang\u2019s personal desire to badmouth the President. To provide a more accurate and full account of the President\u2019s policies, Chang should have played devil\u2019s advocate with Lee, challenging her false assertions and offering global context showing how other countries in similar situations are reacting to this situation. She did neither. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m admittedly not a regular NPR listener, but including this interview in a new segment called \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d is a crime in an of itself.\u00a0 This part of the program should have been called \u201cOur Opinion Considered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One final note. Prior to the publication of this blog, FAIR\u2019s President Dan Stein sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fairus.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2020-04\/NPR-Letter-042420.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">letter<\/a> to Chang pointing out her apparent&nbsp; bias and urging a fairer approach in the future. Chang refused to acknowledge receipt of the letter or offer any response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Grade<\/strong>: Remember, you\u2019re not grading Chang or Lee on whether\nor not you agree with them, but rather how well they present the public with\nthe whole context of the situation and whether they offer a fair and balanced\nlook. On that front, I give them both a solid D (I\u2019m being generous).&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your turn. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Public Radio\u2019s (NPR) Ailsa Chang recently interviewed U.S. immigration history professor Erika Lee from the University of Minnesota about \u201canti-immigrant sentiments\u201d and how they have historically been tied to times of hardship, including \u201cdisease, economic downturns and war.\u201d This interview was conducted in the context of the recent presidential Executive Order (EO) temporarily pausing<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/05\/04\/media-bias-trump-executive-order-immigrationreform-com\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":13790,"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":[575,1524,8581,275],"yst_prominent_words":[8580,1938,8577,3175,8469,2736,8576,1980,1963,8416,8575,8177,8579,1942,1975,7281,8574,5121,8578,1939],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22908"}],"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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22915,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22908\/revisions\/22915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22908"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}