Rage was evidently the order of the day for the hosts of Univision and Telemundo’s weekly public affairs shows, when they dedicated most of their programs to the subject of the failure of President Obama’s 2014 executive actions on immigration to be upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
As usual, Univision was the most egregious of the two networks, with anchor Jorge Ramos failing to include any consideration of the reasoning of the courts on the issue, much less the voice of anyone who favors the majority of U.S. states’ position on the hotly contested matter.
Instead, Ramos paraded a bevy of Democrat officials and activists who are virulently opposed to the enforcement of current federal immigration law. Among the latter, both Cristina Jiménez of "United We Dream" and Gaby Pacheco of "Define American" had the audacity to continue to call on the President to not only unilaterally halt all deportations, but also end DHS’ Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which enables cooperation between federal and local authorities to remove from the country “criminals and others” among the unauthorized population who pose a danger to public safety.
GABY PACHECO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT "DEFINE AMERICAN": Well, he has a lot of power and he can continue to do more. He can cease deportations, stop those programs that he has done, like PEP, but also to candidates, right? We know that for Latinos, Donald Trump is bad news and we [Latinos] do not want him. What he said to us is bad and not... Latinos are not going out to vote for him.
Telemundo’s Enfoque, on the other hand, though also lopsidedly stacked with Democrats and their allies, did invite Texas Republican leader Adryana Boyne, who made the most of the opportunity to give a spirited contrary view on the matter, including her belief that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is likely to shift his position on aspects of immigration as he moves into the general election campaign.
ADRYANA BOYNE, DIRECTOR, VOCES ACTION: …he [Trump] will move more to the center when he officially becomes the nominee, but we also have to remember that when we are talking about elections, [in regards to] the question you're posing, we're not talking about immigration. We are talking about presidential elections, we are looking for a president who will bring jobs to this country, improve the economy, so that we have lower taxes, less growth of government, have a better life, to have all these things, that include and also affects immigration, we need to have a person who really has transparency and I think the accountability in the Republican Party for its candidates for president, to the presidency, it is clear and stronger than what we have seen in the Democratic Party, where there is no such transparency and integrity. Mrs. Clinton not only would be a continuation of what President Obama has been, but it would be even worse because the lady is under criminal investigation by the FBI, everyone knows she’s unaccountable and not transparent. So the contrast is strong among both candidates, then to focus more on what was this decision just taken, because I remind you once again, President Obama did not keep his promise to bring immigration reform and instead took these executive actions. Which I want to remind Clarissa that 27 times the President said he could not carry out this type of decision. 27 times he said it. After that, he changed his mind. A person who is supposed to know the Constitution as President. So then don’t confuse the Latino community with wordiness, Clarissa. The truth and the facts are there. The President failed in his promise, did not pass immigration reform, tried to solve it with a Band-Aid, and failed.
Going entirely unmentioned was that the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress has plenary power over immigration. To quote the Court’s decision on Fiallo v. Bell, for example, "over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over the admission of aliens."
Despite substantial case law and arguments supporting the position that the President stepped out of bounds with his sweeping November 2014 executive actions on immigration, in over an hour of discussion of the subject on both networks, only Boyne had the opportunity to get in those strong words edgewise. On Univision’s Al Punto, however, Jorge Ramos once again studiously avoided any consideration of legal context, in order to favor both his own preferred narrative, and openly political agenda.
Below is the transcript of the referenced relevant portions of the June 26 editions of Univision’s Al Punto and Telemundo’s Enfoque:
UNIVISION
AL PUNTO
6/26/16
10:19:34 AM - 10:25:59 AM | 6 MIN 24 SEC
...
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: Ok. If I have learned from you two and many of you DREAMers is they have learned to put fear aside, so let me finish this interview with something positive: Many are waiting what you decide to see what to do. Gaby, what are you going to do? You won’t keep your arms crossed.
GABY PACHECO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT "DEFINE AMERICAN": Of course not. This fight...
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: What is the plan?
GABY PACHECO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT "DEFINE AMERICAN": There are two things you can do. Personally, we tell our stories to make sure that we are out, because that's how we got DACA at the beginning, right? Telling our stories. Winning the hearts of America. The second thing we have to do is convince people who have the power to become a citizen, to become a citizen. Those who are citizens should register to vote and those who can already vote, should vote, because this fight cannot win with just us. Our covenant is to work for our community and for our families...
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: So you're concentrating on the election, Gaby. Do you think that, for now, that's the way out?
GABY PACHECO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT "DEFINE AMERICAN": That's one of the ways out. We also have to keep pushing President Obama to not...
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: But what else can the President do?
GABY PACHECO, PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT "DEFINE AMERICAN": Well, he has a lot of power and he can continue to do more. He may cease deportations, stop those programs that he has done, like PEP, but also to candidates, right? We know that for Latinos, Donald Trump is bad news and we [Latinos] do not want him. What he said to us is bad and not... Latinos are not going out to vote for him. But Hillary Clinton, she doesn't get a free pass either. We have to keep pushing, because if she wants to be our president, she has to know that it will be more than words what we need from her.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: Cristina, and we’ll end with you. What will you do? What is your plan?
CRISTINA JIMENEZ, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT "UNITED WE DREAM": Well look, we have to keep pushing the president to stop deportations and raids immediately that have unfortunately increased in our communities, and arm ourselves with information on how to protect deportations, because unfortunately deportations will not stop, and we have people vulnerable to deportation. I ask the community to go to "United We Dream," our page on Facebook, because there we have an open line where you can report the activities of immigration officers, or "La migra", and what we have to do is continue to report what they are doing in our communities to stop these deportations. And for November, it is very important that the community comes out to vote because, look, these elections can define whether our community will be able to stay in this country and earn a permanent solution or if we have a president like Mr. Trump, who will deport us all, as he has said. So we have a lot to pay attention to, to be involved, not only to stop the deportations, that's our immediate step, and be strong as a community, because that is how we win. DACA in 2012 and DAPA, which we won in 2014, was for our efforts and because our community lost the fear, and with that same struggle, we have to move forward.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: I thank you two who are here with us. If there are, and I want to say this publicly, two brave women who know what to do, they are precisely Gaby and Cristina. Thanks for being here, I appreciate it.
TELEMUNDO
ENFOQUE
6/26/16
12:13:29 PM - 12:21:24 PM EST | 7 MIN 54 SEC
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Well, we continue in Enfoque, and to analyze the potential impact of what happened on Thursday in the Supreme Court on the November elections, especially with the Hispanic vote, we will talk with two people each with their particular point of views about it. We have Adryana Boyne, she is Republican of Texas, who will be a delegate during the party convention in Cleveland, and Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza. Let's start with Adryana. Adryana, I ask you, President Barack Obama has blamed Republicans, saying that if they had accepted the judge he nominated to fill the vacancy that is in the Supreme Court the legal battle would have decided in their favor, or in favor of five million immigrants who are falling back into the shadows. What is your opinion?
ADRYANA BOYNE, DIRECTOR, VOCES ACTION: Well, I remind the Latino community that the President himself said, that he is not a king to make unilateral decisions. Here it is, that this decision DACA or DAPA, which is a band-aid, a blip, is not immigration reform. He decided without regard for Congress, which is what needs to happen with this type of legislation, then what happened in the Supreme Court was to agree that it could no longer continue. This does not mean that Republicans do not say that there is a relief for those who came to this country through no fault of their own, they did not take that decision, and of course you must have immigration reform. In regards to the nomination of the justice to the Supreme Court you just mentioned, certainly the Senate has the right to approve or not approve Mr. Garland, I think that should be carried out, but that has nothing to do with it because you have to remind people that DACA and DAPA is not immigration reform. President Obama failed to keep his promise that in his first year there would be immigration reform, had the Congress on his side, but the President didn’t do it. That's something to remember.
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Clarissa Martinez, [the decision] was undoubtedly a painful defeat for the people protected under these [executive] actions, what is your interpretation of this setback, what went wrong?
CLARISSA MARTINEZ, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: Well, the first thing is this, we must clarify one thing. Nowhere court - the court what they did was to decide not to decide. People who are saying that the court said that the President’s actions are not legitimate are obfuscating the facts, because in fact the court did not do that. The court did nothing. So I don’t think it was clarified if those actions are lawful or not, simply a final decision was not rendered in this respect. As those who say the president has or doesn’t have the legitimacy of action in this case, I think you have to look at history. History shows that every former Republican or Democratic president has used his executive power in the immigration area. So here the problem is that whatever they say, whether Republicans or others that this was a Band-Aid, and that a long-term solution is needed, we agree on that. The problem here is that they neither pitch, catch nor let anyone bat. And so, the president used his executive powers. And this will also have an impact on the [Hispanic] vote, and what it tells us is the importance of this vote which now adds not only the choice of candidates, but we have very clear as a community that not only our vote decides who wins the election at the end of the day, but also influence who is on these legal chambers that have power to impact millions of our lives.
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Let's think about the future, in the elections next November, uh, Adryana, there are many Republicans conscious of the importance of the Hispanic vote in the general election but the reality is that there is a presumptive candidate that is going to the other side, going in with an intention to deport the vast majority of undocumented immigrants and build a giant wall along the border with Mexico, what do you tell us?
ADRYANA BOYNE, DIRECTOR, VOCES ACTION: I think Mr. Trump, with whom I have publicly stated that I disagreed with, like most other candidates, he [Trump] will move more to the center when he officially becomes the nominee, but we also have to remember that when we are talking about elections, [in regards to] the question you're posing, we're not talking about immigration. We are talking about presidential elections, we are looking for a president who will bring jobs to this country, improve the economy, so that we have lower taxes, less growth of government, have a better life, to have all these things, that include and also affects immigration, we need to have a person who really has transparency and I think the accountability in the Republican Party for its candidates for president, to the presidency, it is clear and stronger than what we have seen in the Democratic Party, where there is no such transparency and integrity. Mrs. Clinton not only would be a continuation of what President Obama has been, but it would be even worse because the lady is under criminal investigation by the FBI, everyone knows she’s unaccountable and not transparent. So the contrast is strong among both candidates, then to focus more on what was this decision just taken, because I remind you once again, President Obama did not keep his promise to bring immigration reform and instead took these executive actions. Which I want to remind Clarissa that 27 times the President said he could not carry out this type of decision. 27 times he said it. After that, he changed his mind. A person who is supposed to know the Constitution as President. So then don’t confuse the Latino community with wordiness, Clarissa. The truth and the facts are there. The President failed in his promise, did not pass immigration reform, tried to solve it with a Band-Aid, and failed.
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Adryana...
CLARISSA MARTINEZ, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: Rogelio, Rogelio…
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Go ahead, Clarissa.
CLARISSA MARTINEZ, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: The message to the community is that the reason why the President said he could not, as many politicians always tell us, and the reason it changed and used his legitimate power to do so [the executive actions], it was not because of presidential benevolence. It was for the activism and electoral participation, both in Congress and in the streets of our communities. So bite the bullet and take that lesson. DAPA, DACA, we were not given to anyone because of benevolence, they were given because of our own participation. Right now we are seeing the results of the vote in the UK, where they also have a rather large element of division and resentment to do with immigrants and people of color. We're seeing that also in our country. Let us remember that the power of our vote not only takes account of our individual aspirations, but the aspirations of our communities and our country. So let’s not forget to exercise that voice, as well as in the chambers of Congress, in the streets and at the polls. Ultimately, find out the facts. I am not here to defend Clinton, and very fortunately do not have the shameful role of defending the other candidate either. Our community must continue to participate so that we are not disrespected on immigration or any other issue.
ROGELIO MORA TAGLE, HOST, ENFOQUE: Clarissa Martinez, Adryana Boyne, thank you very much to have participated in this debate, in this chat here in Enfoque.
