Where does pro-amnesty end and pro-anarchy begin? The close relation between the two was very much in evidence during a recent report on Telemundo, highlighting the latest demands of the radical Left immigration lobby to shut down practically any enforcement of federal immigration law, and cajole the Obama administration into authorizing Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to the most recent wave of unauthorized arrivals from Central America.
The story, by Telemundo’s Liliana Henao, highlighted the rabble rousers from Casa de Maryland, a radical 'immigrants rights' group, and their latest push for backdoor amnesty for tens of thousands of Central Americans here illegally.
Their new demand directed at President Obama? That his administration stop applying its “priority” enforcement of the law to recent unlawful arrivals from Central America, and grant them Temporary Protection Status (TPS) instead.
LILIANA HENAO, CORRESPONDENT: Demands are increasingly being heard for the United States to extend Temporary Protection Status to the thousands of Central Americans that claim to have fled their countries, terrorized by violence.
GUSTAVO TORRES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CASA DE MARYLAND: They are not immigrants. The families that are arriving with their small sons and daughters are refugees.
As Henao indicated earlier in her report, the parameters for granting Temporary Protection Status are narrow and explicit, as it is a program designed for “foreigners in the United States that temporarily cannot return to their home countries, due to armed conflict, an epidemic, natural disaster, or another extraordinary situation.”
To Henao’s credit, she also interviewed an opponent of Casa de Maryland’s fresh demands for lawlessness, namely Alfonso Aguilar, Executive Director of the American Principles Project’s Latino Partnership. By no means can Aguilar be characterized as an immigration hard liner, but even he found the pro-anarchy push to be beyond the pale.
ALFONSO AGUILAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, APP LATINO PARTNERSHIP: Can you imagine? We should then give TPS status to people from countless countries where there are a lot of violence, whether in Asia or Africa.
The Left’s latest demands on the immigration front are clearly a tactical response to the Obama administration’s exceedingly modest recent round of immigration enforcement actions. But for all the administration’s practical hollowing out of immigration law, these folks – along with their Democrat allies in Congress and the current crop of Democrat presidential contenders, apparently refuse to be satisfied, until the goal of essentially zero enforcement - and the conversion of the United States into a nationwide sanctuary city - is finally reached.
The entire story was yet another eye-opening testament to the outsized power that radical Casa de Maryland and their allies in Washington continue to exert on the news coverage of the nation’s leading Spanish-language news media outlets, i.e., coverage of another exercise in grievance and evocation of sympathy, with a subsequent demand of a government solution. Never mind such details as the rule of law and upholding the Constitution.
Below are relevant portions of the transcript from the January 7, 2016 edition of Noticiero Telemundo.
MARIA CELESTE ARRARÁS, ANCHOR: Pressure is increasingly mounting on President Obama to extend Temporary Protected Status, or TPS as it is known, to the Central Americans that recently entered the country and are the current target of raids and deportations. But as Liliana Henao explains, this isn’t as easy as it seems. It isn’t, Liliana.
LILIANA HENAO, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That’s right, María Celeste. The so-called TPS is granted to foreigners in the United States that temporarily cannot return to their home countries, due to armed conflict, an epidemic, natural disaster, or another extraordinary situation. The question is whether the violence in Central America falls under one of these categories. There are increasing demands for the United States to extend Temporary Protection Status to the thousands of Central Americans that claim to have fled their countries, terrorized by violence.
GUSTAVO TORRES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CASA DE MARYLAND: They are not immigrants. The families that are arriving with their small sons and daughters are refugees. As such, we are calling upon President Obama, who has all the power to do so.
LILIANA HENAO: Alfonso Aguilar, former director of the Immigration Service, does not believe that the situation in Central America’s Northern Triangle warrants TPS.
ALFONSO AGUILAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, APP LATINO PARTNERSHIP: Imagine that. We should then give TPS status to people from countless countries where there is a lot of violence, whether in Asia or Africa.
LILIANA HENAO: …Currently, thousands of Hondurans and Salvadorans are shielded by TPS orders granted, respectively, after Hurricane Mitch, and after a devastating earthquake in El Salvador in 2001. On the other hand, it’s been confirmed that a group of Democrat legislators are drafting a letter that they will send to President Obama next week, asking him to extend the protection.
…
LILIANA HENAO: For now, their only line of defense is in the Immigration Courts. And, well, as they have promised, the pro-immigrant organizations will return to the White House tomorrow to march, precisely, in order to demand the extension of Temporary Protection Status.
