Univision is openly cheering for an initiative underway that is aimed at completely changing the electoral process in New York City.
The network’s morning show, Despierta América, dedicated thoroughly glowing coverage to a New York City Council measure that would give non-citizen refugees, immigrants with work permits, and eventually illegal immigrants the right to vote in local elections.
Anchor Satcha Pretto whitewashed the initiative as part of the latest ‘fight for immigrant rights.’
SATCHA PRETTO, NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: While some states apply a tough policy against undocumented immigration, others fight for their rights. In New York, a group of city council members are fighting so that people with work permits, refugee status and/or eventually those without documents can vote in local elections. Defenders of the initiative assure that in the past, similar measures have been approved.
The report entirely failed to provide any viewpoints to the contrary and in defense of U.S. citizenship as a necessary requisite for full enfranchisement and participation in the country’s electoral processes.
According to The Guardian, the bill before the New York City Council would give over 1.3 million non-citizens in New York City over the age of 18 the right to vote. That’s a full 21% of the voting age population in the Big Apple.
With no dissenting views presented, Univision simplistically portrayed the matter as one more front in the ‘civil rights’ struggle for non-citizen residents and undocumented immigrants. The network completely omitted the efforts of the three Republican City Council members who are raising concerns over the measure, and their efforts to make citizenship something that should matter when the time comes to participate in American democracy.
The right to vote in this country is without a doubt a great privilege, and is one that has long been conferred to and enjoyed by U.S. citizens only. So much for the latest effort by Univision to erode the line between non-citizens and citizens, by subtracting from citizens in order to give to those who have not yet earned citizenship, as well as those whose presence in the country is not even lawful.
The complete transcript of the referenced Feb. 23 segment of Univision’s Despierta América can be found below:
SATCHA PRETTO, NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: While some states apply a tough policy against undocumented immigration, others fight for their rights. In New York, a group of city council members are fighting so that people with work permits, refugee status and/or eventually those without documents can vote in local elections. Defenders of the initiative assure that in the past, similar measures have been approved.
