DAPAgeddon arrived last Thursday, in the form of the Supreme Court's ruling against the Obama Administration's executive amnesties, and news coverage was as awful as one would expect. The time has now come for our domestic Spanish-language media to reflect on its role in the toxic political environment surrounding immigration policy and the coverage it receives therein.
Spanish-language media went into catastrophe mode (to put it mildly), with a tone normally reserved for acts of terror and natural disasters. The graphic above translates, roughly, to: "DACA/DAPA- SHATTERED DREAM".
The stories to emerge from the ruling will fall into a familiar pattern. Watch for empathy pieces on broken families, campaign strategy pieces, and above all else, pressure pieces aimed at electing those who might support future executive amnesties. Furthermore, expect reaction to come, mostly, from the open-borders side of the immigration debate. With regard to the latter, here's a taste via Telemundo:
GUSTAVO TORRES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CASA: Are we going to elect someone who says we are criminals and rapists, that we are not welcome and is going to deport us? Or someone who says is committed to the struggle for immigration reform?
What we did not hear once through four days plus (and counting) of DAPAgeddon coverage was any sort of defense of the Rule of Law, nor did viewers receive a breakdown of the reasoning behind the Fifth Circuit's ruling. Neither did we ever hear the words "executive overreach". It was staggering to listen to anchor after anchor say "...well, now the immigration issue goes back to Congress."
I don't recall that the issue ever stopped being the sole province of Congress, and that's precisely what got us to this ruling, isn't it? Furthermore, Congress decided the issue when the Gang Of Eight bill failed, having been voted upon by its Members, duly elected and voting in accord (for the most part) with their constituencies.
But our Spanish-language media, in its corruption, willfully ignored that inconvenient issue. Instead, they proceeded to sell their viewership on the pipe dream of immigration reform by executive fiat, and went about the business of either demonizing or marginalizing those who disagreed with that particular method of policymaking.
Now that Spanish-language media is making a show of pivoting to the politics of immigration reform, it's useful to remember that they actually never stopped pushing the politics of immigration reform. As this evergreen clip from Jorge Ramos reminds us, an open, porous border is what's best for business.
