Univision anchor Jorge Ramos confirms, yet again, that he is in fact an immigration activist posing as a journalist. His latest opinion column slams the Biden administration’s proposal to build 30 miles of border wall, and calls for the government to allow an additional 2-3 million immigrants into the United States every year.
Not holding back, Ramos opens the column, titled “Biden’s Wall” by asserting that “Walls don’t work”.
Walls don’t work.
Neither do broken promises.
When Joe Biden was a candidate for president in 2020, he promised, in an interview with NPR Radio, that if he won “not one more foot of wall would be built” on the border with Mexico. His promise contrasted with then-President Donald Trump's desire to build a wall along most of the 3,152 kilometers that separate the two countries.
Biden's promise was loaded with symbolism and support for migrants. The idea of not continuing with the construction of the wall also meant giving better treatment to foreigners and moving away from Trump's statements when, in 2015, he said that Mexican immigrants were “criminals” and “rapists”.
To be clear, Biden promised to unwind the entirety of what Trump did in order to contain the border, and that promise is what sent a signal to the coyotes and human traffickers ready to make a killing (figuratively and sometimes literally) along our southern border, and he did so in order to pander to the Professional Latino class and Immigration-NGO complex that benefit from a continuously broken border. Univision, the company that employs Ramos as Senior Editorial Advisor to the CEO, is at the heart of this convergence as an entity that amplified Biden’s pandering.
And in Ramos’ view, Biden is not doing nearly enough.
Faced with an increasingly complicated re-election, Biden does not want to have an out-of-control border in 2024. But what Biden, Democrats and Republicans have to understand is that migration is not like a little machine that can be turned on and off at will. It is a complicated system in which the poorest and most needy on the continent go to the places they consider the safest and with the most opportunities. In other words, migration is not something that can be controlled. At most, you can try to manage it.
That is why meetings of leaders, such as the one convened in Palenque by the Mexican president, and the one announced in Washington for November 3, are useless. Presidential statements and their naive plans are of no use in the face of the push of millions of people seeking a better life. No one can stop that.
And all of this, in practical terms, means that the United States has to significantly increase the number of legal migrants it accepts each year. Approximately one million every year is not enough. A much more realistic number - based on the numbers of undocumented immigrants detained at the border - would be two to three million legal immigrants per year.
In Ramos’ view, because immigration cannot be stopped then Biden should just roll over and allow more of it to happen.
You’d be correct in thinking that Ramos would subordinate American sovereignty and border security in order to accommodate a migrant crisis. He said as much in 2018 in an interview with journalist Jaime Bayly:
JAIME BAYLY: Do you agree to admit that a political leader that wishes to stop undocumented immigration, is not necessarily a racist?
JORGE RAMOS: Oh, of course, I think there are people…
BAYLY: Is it legitimate?
RAMOS: Well, I think that every country has the right to protect its borders and choose who comes and who doesn’t. Now, you have to recognize that there are 250 million immigrants in the world, you and I among them, and most of the people here, and when there is a humanitarian crisis, that prevails, it seems to me, over the right of a country to protect its borders and not allow anyone in. I believe we are obliged to help the most vulnerable.
Remember also that expanded immigration is what’s best for business:
JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION: I think the future of Spanish-language media is assured for decades, simply, for a very simple reason: Despite of the fact that the majority of the growth within the Hispanic community is coming from people being born here, we still have one to two million immigrants, legally and illegally coming in every single year. Most of them speak Spanish. So, therefore, we have a market that is growing and growing.
And I think we can assure you that in the next few decades, you'll see Spanish-language media. That's another topic completely, but the Latino community is keeping so many elements from their country of origin, including Spanish- 9 out of 10 Latinos speak Spanish...speak Spanish at home- that- and we're doing things that Italians didn't do, or Russians, or Eastern Europeans didn't do- and the closeness to our countries of origin and the communications that we have are keeping Spanish-language media alive. And thanks to that, it's a new power that other immigrant communities didn't have in the past.
There is an ongoing effort to unravel the U.S. border. As Jorge Ramos’ most recent column proves, that effort is vast, expansive, and institutional. Consumers of Spanish-language news media deserve actual news, and not immigration advocacy disguised as news.
Click “expand” to view a full translation of the aforementioned column as published on Univision’s web site on Monday, October 30th, 2023:
Biden’s Wall
By: Jorge Ramos
Walls don’t work.
Neither do broken promises.
When Joe Biden was a candidate for president in 2020, he promised, in an interview with NPR Radio, that if he won “not one more foot of wall would be built” on the border with Mexico. His promise contrasted with then-President Donald Trump's desire to build a wall along most of the 3,152 kilometers that separate the two countries.
Biden's promise was loaded with symbolism and support for migrants. The idea of not continuing with the construction of the wall also meant giving better treatment to foreigners and moving away from Trump's statements when, in 2015, he said that Mexican immigrants were “criminals” and “rapists”.
Furthermore, Biden's promise was a reminder (of the promise) Barack Obama made to Latinos in 2008 - also as a presidential candidate - committing to having “in the first year (of his administration) an immigration proposal that I can support”. In 2009, Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, and Obama failed to keep his promise. Biden did not want to follow the same path as Obama.
On his first day as president, Biden fulfilled another promise he had made as a candidate and sent to Congress a proposal to legalize over 10 million undocumented people in the country. His proposal did not prosper due to a lack of support from Republicans. And that is an important pending issue. But Biden had kept his word. Now he just had to remain firm and not build “one more foot of wall” on the border, as he had promised.
However, things quickly deteriorated on the border.
After the end of the pandemic, which seriously affected Latin American economies, caravans of immigrants began to arrive at the southern border. The desperation was palpable. Families with children were crossing the dangerous Darien jungle in Panama and outwitting drug cartels and the National Guard in Mexico to reach the north. And although the US government insisted that the border was not open, the perception of many immigrants was that Biden was not Trump and that, eventually, they would be able to enter.
The perception became reality. In 2021, 1.7 million migrants were detained at the border,according to Border Patrol figures. In 2022 there were 2.3 million. And in fiscal year 2023 it increased to 2.4 million, a record.
The Biden administration has tried everything to confront this gigantic wave of migration. But nothing has worked- neither threats nor incentives for requesting entry from another country. The Trump-era program – Stay in Mexico – only provided temporary relief. And the effort to have future asylees fill out their entry application on their cell phones – and the CBP ONE application – only worked for a while until the system was overwhelmed by the large number of applicants.
Images of migrants crossing the Rio Bravo/Grande in waist-deep water and with children on their shoulders once again dominated the news. Just a few weeks ago I saw in Eagle Pass, Texas, how hundreds of immigrants entered the United States without a single agent stopping them.
And it is in this context that Biden broke his promise.
In early October, the Biden government agreed to build about 30 more kilometers of wall. The money had been approved by Congress when Trump was president and Biden did not oppose the project. He could have sued to not comply with the congressional order, as reported in The New York Times, but Biden decided not to.
This is how Biden's wall began.The construction of that small section of wall coincides with other decisions that the Biden administration has made to try to reduce the entry of undocumented immigrants. Such as negotiating with the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela so that it may accept flights with deportees from the United States. At the same time, the United States has softened its economic sanctions against the Chavista regime.
Faced with an increasingly complicated re-election, Biden does not want to have an out-of-control border in 2024. But what Biden, Democrats and Republicans have to understand is that migration is not like a little machine that can be turned on and off at will. It is a complicated system in which the poorest and most needy on the continent go to the places they consider the safest and with the most opportunities. In other words, migration is not something that can be controlled. At most, you can try to manage it.
That is why meetings of leaders, such as the one convened in Palenque by the Mexican president, and the one announced in Washington for November 3, are useless. Presidential statements and their naive plans are of no use in the face of the push of millions of people seeking a better life. No one can stop that.
And all of this, in practical terms, means that the United States has to significantly increase the number of legal migrants it accepts each year. Approximately one million every year is not enough. A much more realistic number - based on the numbers of undocumented immigrants detained at the border - would be two to three million legal immigrants per year.
In addition, the United States must modernize and streamline its system for processing migrants and asylees. I had to see hundreds of frustrated immigrants in northern Mexico trying, at all hours, to make their request for legal entry to the United States on their cell phones. But the system simply could not cope.
The 30 kilometers of new wall that Biden will build on the border will be of no use. Immigrants will simply skip it or take other routes. But now, the difficult thing will be to believe Biden again.
