The nation’s Spanish-language media has fallen back on a familiar trope, smearing President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting immigration for 60 days as “anti-immigrant”.
The temporary measure is meant to safeguard the population from COVID-19, and to protect the U.S. labor force, but Telemundo depicts the order as only serving to further anguish the nation's immigrants. Take a look at how Telemundo News mislead their audience with this April 21, 2020 report (press on Expand to read the complete transcript):
JOSE DÍAZ-BALART: There is anguish within the Latino community, after President Trump's decision to suspend immigration for 60 days. Many believe it is nothing more than a measure to please his followers, but there are immigrants who nervously await the details of the new anti-immigrant measure. Cristina Londoño has the reactions.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I am pleased to announce that
CRISTINA LONDOÑO: President Trump's suspension of immigration processes has unleashed anxiety and confusion in the immigrant community.
SANDRA MENJIBAR: I worry because I've spent a lot. And for getting my papers, I don't want them taken away from me.
LUIS PAOLI, LAWYER: People are calling, people who have TPS, people who want to renew their work permits...
LONDOÑO: In announcing the measure, the president referred
only to some work-related residency processes, that Luis Paoli says would mostly affect immigrants who are not inside the country.
PRESIDENT TRUMP (Translated): We want to protect workers and as we move forward we will protect them more and more
LONDOÑO: Criticism of Trump won’t stop because all the consulates in the world are closed.
PAOLI: It never rains but it pours for the president. He's saying, ´ok, we're not going to process these visas´, that are no longer being processed anyway. All of this seems to be a direct message that President Trump is sending to his political base.
MENJIBAR: I´m okay with that. But I know that other things can happen.
Telemundo´s White House correspondent Cristina Londoño opens her report by emphasizing that “President Trump's suspension of immigration processes has unleashed anxiety and confusion in the immigrant community.”
Only seconds later, however, Londoño adds that “In announcing the measure, the president referred only to some work-related residency processes, that (activist) Luis Paoli says, would mostly affect immigrants who are not inside the country.
The facts did not deter the newscasters from unsettling their audience, primarily made up by newly arrived immigrants that watch their news in Spanish. In this case, Londoño interviewed a young Latina U. S. resident in the process of becoming a legal citizen, to illustrate how the measure “has unleashed anxiety and confusion in the immigrant community.”
Major bummer here as the woman, Sandra Menjibar, clearly stated that “I´m okay with that,” effectively shutting down the reporter´s suggestion that Menjibar couldn't sleep because of the order.
In the typical style of the “Blame Trump” focus at the Telemundo newsroom, politics, not authentic concern for his constituents, are behind the president's order, labeling it - “A direct message that President Trump is sending to his political base.”
As if Telemundo didn’t just do the same exact thing. Physicians, heal thyselves.
