The nation’s domestic Spanish-language networks have found a way to superimpose their most prominent public policy agenda item on their coronavirus coverage: by bemoaning the exclusion of illegal immigrants in the recently-passed economic aid package.
Univision´s Washington correspondent, Edwin Pitti, might wholeheartedly state that right now “It doesn't matter that the economy is doing well, because at the end of the day the economy is important but health comes first”. But as a whole, the networks’ reporting on the Trump relief bill says otherwise, as you can appreciate in the following video. (Press on Expand to view the transcript).
EDWIN PITTI: But I had the opportunity yesterday to talk to Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, and he told me that they tried, until the very end, to try to include the undocumented in this package but the Republicans said no.
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CRISTINA LONDOÑO: It excludes undocumented immigrants.
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JULIO VAQUEIRO: What options does an undocumented mmigrant have left under these conditions, where they won´t get the federal assistance?
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JOSÉ DÍAZ-BALART: Many are Latinos, a particularly vulnerable community right now, and they are already having a hard time getting the benefits.
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JORGE RAMOS: When you talk to our people, what are they telling you?
FABIOLA GALINDO: Um, Jorge. Many of them won't receive the assistance discussed in Washington. Many of them don’t have papers.
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MARIA ANTONIETA COLLINS: An important group of workers who will not receive benefits from the stimulus package are the thousands of undocumented workers.
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PEDRO ULTRERAS: There is currently no assistance for undocumented immigrants.
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JANET ALVAREZ: Unfortunately not. This package only applies for people who have filed their tax returns, who have a Social Security number.
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REBEKAH SMYTH: And well, people's spirits are declining day by day, in addition to undocumented immigrants who for the most part, have been fired because restaurants and businesses, bodegas, can no longer continue to pay them.
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PITTI: It doesn't matter that the economy is doing well, because at the end of the day the economy is important but health comes first.
Promoting illegal immigration, the employment of undocumented immigrants in favor of U.S. citizens and hysteria about the economic stimulus package and how it will NOT include illegal immigrants, appear to have top billing at Univision and Telemundo.
It is unfortunate that these networks, their anchors, and reporters so blatantly manifest their disregard for the millions of Hispanics- and other legal immigrants who are proud citizens of the United States of America.
