Although a Texas judge issuing an injunction against Obama’s “executive action” on illegal immigrants came late Monday, national newspapers all put that ruling on the front page on Wednesday. Some headlines buried the judge. USA Today has “Obama immigration plan blocked.” The Wall Street Journal ran with “Obama Dealt Setback on Immigration.” None of the headlines mentioned “illegal” immigrants.
USA Today’s entire nine-paragraph story avoided the “I-word,” using “undocumented immigrants” four times, and “migrants” once. To be fair, it surfaced at the very end, but not to describe immigrants: Judge Andrew “Hanen ruled that Homeland Securtiy took an illegal shortcut by failing to allow public comment on the new policies.”
The New York Times waited until deep in paragraph three, using “illegal” as it described what Judge Hanen wrote in his decision. The Washington Post was best among liberal newspapers by using “illegal” as the 15th word.
At National Public Radio, they were quite allergic to the word “illegal,” preferring instead to use “unauthorized immigrants.” From Wednesday's Morning Edition:
RENEE MONTAGNE, anchor: Today was supposed to be the day when President Obama's executive action on immigration went into effect. That action, announced last November, would've shielded more than 4 million people from the threat of deportation. But that plan is on hold after a federal judge in Texas issued a temporary injunction, which leaves many potential applicants in limbo while they wait for the administration to appeal.
RICHARD GONZALES: That's left millions of immigrants and their advocates wondering what comes next....Christopher Martinez is director of legal services at Catholic Charities of the East Bay, one of the main groups helping immigrants with their paperwork in the San Francisco Bay Area.
From Tuesday night's All Things Considered:
KELLY McEVERS, anchor: We begin this hour with the ruling by a federal judge in Texas that halts President Obama's executive actions on immigration - actions that would grant temporary legal status to millions of people. In a moment, what the ruling means to some unauthorized immigrants.
AUDIE CORNISH, anchor: The decision to suspend the president's actions comes a day before the federal government was set to take applications from a certain group of unauthorized immigrants. They include those who entered the U.S. as children and have lived here since 2010. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports these immigrants are now in legal limbo....
HANSI LO WANG: This is before President Obama's first program for young, unauthorized immigrants began in 2012. So instead Tagasheva applied as a special case for deferred action, a status that allowed her to stay in the U.S. until about two years ago when her attorney says her application got stuck in bureaucratic limbo....
Last November, the president announced executive actions that would have given Social Security numbers and temporary work permits to about 300,000 unauthorized immigrants who came before they turned 16, like Tagasheva.
