On Monday's edition of America Live, Megyn Kelly hosted Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin to discuss the Obama administration's decision to prioritize the removal of undocumented immigrants who pose a threat to public safety. Malkin -- who has said she agrees that Mexican immigrants in the United States are “part of a plan” by the Mexican government “to bring back territory to Mexico” -- was “not happy” about the administration's plan, to say the least.

Throughout the segment, Malkin's speech was a strident echo of anti-immigrant talking points and inflammatory language smearing immigrants. She claimed the administration's decision was made to “appease” the “left-wing, open-borders lobby” and that it amounted to passing the DREAM Act “through administrative fiat.” Malkin, who is no friend of the legislation that provides certain undocumented students and armed services members a path to citizenship, referred to the proposed act as an “illegal alien student bailout.”

Dismissing NDN's Kristian Ramos' contention that the plan is “smart policy” that throws limited law enforcement resources behind deporting criminals while cutting detainment costs, Malkin replied:

MALKIN: It sounds like good rhetoric and they certainly have tested these talking points and tried to appeal to pragmatists, but I've studied and reported and investigated the deportation system over the last 20 years and it is not the case that we're deporting hardened criminals. That's the problem, is that the system is such a wreck that they're unable to be able to tell who's here as a true potential danger to the country and who's not.

That indeed was the bulk of Malkin's substantive argument: that she knows better. She also had a message for those who are here unlawfully: “You do not belong here.”

When Ramos tried to make the point that Obama's decision “is designed to do exactly what Michelle is saying that has always been a problem” and that it addresses a “resource issue,” he was cut off by Kelly, who moderated the discussion as if Malkin's points were beyond dispute.

Since the Obama administration announced the new immigration plan, Fox has shown just how “fair and balanced” it really is. The network, which characterized the decision as “blanket amnesty,” has taken the opportunity to air footage of border crossers and smear immigrants as “illegals.” Fox has also repeatedly hosted a hate group leader to attack the new policy and has advanced the notion that President Obama's decision is unlawful and subject to impeachment.

Writing about the decision on her personal blog, Malkin stated:

The Obama Department of Homeland Security late last week announced it would enforce the DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout by administrative order -- call them White House deportation waivers -- over the heads of a bipartisan majority of Congress that has repeatedly and resoundingly rejected such proposals.

They administration didn't put it in such stark terms, of course. But that is the effect of the decree.

[...]

The question for 2012 GOP primary voters: Is there a candidate out there who you trust to stand on the side of secure borders and strict enforcement, who has consistently opposed DREAM Act illegal alien bailouts, and who will resist the urge to use and abuse his executive powers to override the will of the people?

In November 2004, the editorial board of the Virginian-Pilot, a Norfolk-based daily newspaper, dumped Malkin from its op-ed page. The Pilot, which regularly featured the likes of Thomas Sowell, George Will, and Cal Thomas -- conservatives all -- had had enough of her “penchant for name-calling and ad hominem attacks.”

Bronwyn Lance Chester, then a Pilot editorial writer who is now Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss' communications director, commented: “I think she habitually mistakes shrill for thought-provoking and substitutes screaming for discussion.” Lance Chester added: “She's the worst of what's wrong with punditry today. She adds absolutely nothing to genuine political discourse.”

Malkin, whose column is syndicated nationwide by Creators Syndicate, said she was amused by the newspaper's decision at the time, adding: “The Pilot is free to do whatever it wants with its op-ed pages. Next time, though, it should avoid making such a stridently sanctimonious show of it.” She further wrote that " 'stridency' and shrillness are in the eye of the liberal media beholder" but acknowledged that she is “anti-liberal.”