Fox's Kendall uncritically reported Rep. Norwood's false claim that under the Senate immigration bill, "[a]ll you got to do is come across the border [and] you can become a citizen"
SUMMARY: Fox News reporter Megyn Kendall uncritically reported Rep. Charles Norwood's (R-GA) false claim that under the Senate immigration bill, "[a]ll you got to do is come across the border [and] you can become a citizen." In fact, the bill would grant a path to citizenship only to illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for more than five years and who hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English, and pay fines and back taxes.
On the August 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report, general assignment reporter Megyn Kendall, in a report about new immigration population statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, uncritically reported Rep. Charles Norwood's (R-GA) false claim that under the Senate immigration bill, "[a]ll you got to do is come across the border [and] you can become a citizen." In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, the Senate bill would grant a path to citizenship only to illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for more than five years, and those immigrants would be eligible only if they "hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English, and pay fines and back taxes," as The New York Times has reported. Illegal immigrants who have been in the United States two to five years would be required to return to a port of entry, where they would be granted temporary worker visas and could become eligible for eventual citizenship; illegal immigrants who have been in the United States less than two years -- and all future illegal entrants -- would, if captured, be deported under the Senate bill's regulations.
From the August 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report:
KENDALL: The data does not specify how many of these immigrants are in the country illegally, but experts say the number's high.
WILLIAM FREY (Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution): Immigration is on the rise and illegal immigration is on the rise. It used to be maybe only a third or a quarter of all the immigrants each year were illegal. Now it's about half.
KENDALL: That could fuel the immigration debate, which continued this week in Georgia, where GOP Congressman Charlie Norwood argued against the more forgiving Senate reform bill and in favor of the much tougher House version.
NORWOOD: All you got to do is come across the border under the Senate bill, you can become a citizen, you can bring all of your family. We're going to pick up about 20 million new immigrants in the next 20 years, and Georgia is running out of water now.
KENDALL: The dueling House and Senate bills have been languishing here on Capitol Hill for months. The conventional wisdom now, at this point, Jim, is that there is virtually no chance of lawmakers reaching a compromise any time before the mid-term elections.
"but experts say the number's high"
This is then followed by nothing verifiable. Hm, sounds like a fancier version of saying "according to some people..." that we've heard so much of lately.
Isn't there some critical mass of stupidity and then Fox just implodes?
A spurious claim to authority to make up for the basic weakness of the argument
is Fox News' viewership
It also used to be that you didn't have to pay to become a citizen, you didn't have to wait years and you didn't have to speak english. Oh, wait, rethuglicans haven't got that last one through - yet...
georgia is running out of water. georgia can only take a certain percent of the water that flows into florida's apalachicola river. everyone chooses to ignore the environmental effects of population growth fueled by immigration, and the effect of trying to reduce energy consumption with a continually growing population. and for all the people who said we will never control the border no matter what, from an associated press article by pauline jelenik of the associated press: "border patrol chief david v. aguilar reported a 45 percent decline in the number of people arrested along the u.s. mexican border, when comparing the 69 days before bush's mid may announcement with the 69 days after." that compares with the normal decline in summer arrests of around 28 percent. " 'i think it's logical to say that we are gaining control of that piece of the border,' [lt. gen. h. steven]blum [chief of the national guard] said."
I agree that there are many important reasons that go un-discussed in the emotionally inflamed discussions on these issues. There are real and legitimate reasons to control the border and limit immigration. I also think that it is something that while perhaps you can not stop all illegal border crossings you can certainly greatly decrease the numbers. I also think that the only way these immigration laws can be effective is if they are actually enforced. We have laws on the book that are flagrantly ignored and systemically ignored. I also think the laws with respect to businesses breaking immigration laws needs to be sufficiently severe to make it not something written off as the cost of doing business.
because when a social security number shows up at forty different workplaces, and the government knows it, there is often nothing but a small fine assessed.
I wonder what the American Indian thinks of inmmigration?
Always used to say the biggest problem Native Americans suffered from was a poor immigration policy
the members of the tohono o'odham nation on the mexican border are not happy with the mounds of garbage left daily on their tribal lands. and considering their feelings for the land, i doubt that they can be happy that our present population of 300 million will increase to 420 million by 2050, mostly due to immigration. that means more urban sprawl, more use of already scarce water resources, more air pollution, and ever more stress on the environment. not to mention ever increasing real estate prices that are putting home ownership out of reach in large parts of the country. but it's always easier to talk cliches than discuss facts.
aided and abetted by Bush and US intelligence preserves the economic divide and the status quo, which will drive more Mexicans northward in search of a better life. The Cons talk up a good game, but if they truly wanted to address the route cause of Hispanic immigration, both legal and illegal, they wouldn't have facilitated Calderon's election fraud. Obrador demonstrates his dedication to the commoner by leading their protest in the streets. Bush, well Bush sneaks in the backdoor these days. Most foreign countries won't even let him land Air Force One on their soil anymore. He has an international warrant for his arrest for war crimes.
Through working to improve the deplorable conditions around the world, especially in Mexico, we could solve our immigration situation. Vicente Fox, like Bush, wants to keep his poor people poor. An empowered middle class, a well-educated middle class is the greatest threat to an oligarchical dictatorship. Just look what the Cons have done to the US educational system. We're about tied with Turkey in our views on evolutionary science-something like 34th in the world. India produces exponentially greater #s of engineers, and they are better engineers than US grads. The Cons talk up isolationism, but they opened up the borders to weaken the middle class.