It turns out that former North Carolina Senator John Edwards was right and there are, in fact, two Americas. In one America, concerns over an unsecure border vis-à-vis potential ISIS threats and the spread of communicable disease are totally reasonable and given a fair hearing.
In the other America (pun fully intended), a network news program ostensibly solely devoted to the preservation of Obama’s Coalition of the Ascendant flippantly dismisses such concerns as racist paranoia, and no rebuttal need be sought or offered.
On Univision’s Al Punto, host Jorge Ramos inter
viewed Congressman Juan Vargas (D-CA) and the result was about what you’d expect. Ramos teed up one softball after another for Vargas, and Vargas did not disappoint, both defending Obama’s executive actions and declaring that the border is more secure than ever.
Vargas also found time to place the onus of the recent spread of measles solely on anti-vaxxers.
Given that Vargas’ views were in sync with those of Ramos, there was apparently no need to present another point of view, much less for Ramos to badger Vargas. Here are some choice quotes:
Jorge Ramos: Do you fear that an ISIS commando (force) could enter via the border between the United States and Mexico, and carry out an act of terror here in the United States?
Cong. Vargas: Well, it’s not likely, right? The truth is that the border is very secure. It would be more likely, right, for them to enter through Canada or some other place, but not through San Diego, and not through the border between Mexico and the United States. There could be an attack here, but the fact is that most people who come here that could do harm enter with visas, not through the border. They come here by plane and arrive with their visa. And so, those are the people that we truly have to protect ourselves from. But the folks that come in through the border, which enter without papers, those people come here to work.
Ramos: Congressman, I’d like to ask you about the measles epidemic here in the United States. Some…some persons here in the States are blaming undocumented immigrants for having brought this epidemic to the United States, from Mexico and Latin America. Are they right?
Vargas: No. It’s absurd. It’s absurd. They are saying that these kids that have measles…that they are truly coming from Mexico and other places. But the evidence shows that this isn’t so. These are the same people here, in the States, whose kids, because they don’t want to give them their vaccines, right? They don’t want to vaccinate them. THOSE are the children that have measles. And it is entirely possible that children coming from other countries might then contract (measles).
The interview also included an especially glaring contradiction. Here’s what Congressman Vargas had to say about his father, a legal immigrant through the mid-20th century Bracero (manual laborer) program, within the context of current U.S. immigration policy:
Vargas: Well, my father…the truth is that he did well, because there was a system where he could come work here, and so he was not chased around by the Border Patrol, right, and so he was able to work, and also with his kids, he was able to give us affection without fear of being deported. So we have to have a system like that because there are many parents out there like my father…”
Most Americans would probably agree with Congressman Vargas’ non-ironic praise of a past system which prioritized for immigration based on the United States’ critical needs with ample congressional oversight, as opposed to our de facto system which seems increasingly based on political priorities and is carried out by executive fiat with essentially no congressional oversight.
