4 Minutes And 4 Lies From Karl Rove

Written by Todd Gregory

Published

Bill O'Reilly brought Karl Rove onto his Fox News show for a dizzying spin session about the Obama administration's announcement that it will allow some young undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. In a short span, Rove managed put forward numerous falsehoods about the new policy and the recent history of the immigration debate.

Here are four facts about immigration -- and how Rove tried to jam them up:

1. The change in deportation policy for young people is legal. The Department of Homeland Security announced that it will exercise its prosecutorial discretion and consider exempting some young immigrants from deportation. This is consistent with current law and has decades of precedent. But on The O'Reilly Factor, Rove claimed that President Obama is saying that “we will selectively apply the laws of the United States” and that "[w]e will exempt a class of people from the statutes. There's no authority, I think, to do that."

2. The new policy will be applied case by case. The DHS press release describing the policy change says, “Under this directive, individuals who demonstrate that they meet [certain] criteria will be eligible for an exercise of discretion ... on a case by case basis.” On The O'Reilly Factor, Rove falsely asserted that Obama is saying that “we will selectively apply the laws of the United States, not individual, case by case by case, but by class.”

3. Comprehensive reform legislation was introduced in Congress under Obama. In December 2009, Democrats introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House of Representatives. On The O'Reilly Factor, Rove falsely claimed that in August 2009, Obama promised to introduce comprehensive legislation, but “nothing has happened.”

4. Republicans led the way in killing 2007 reform legislation. In June 2007, Senate Republicans played a dominant role in killing comprehensive reform legislation, which was backed by President Bush. A majority of the Democrats in the body voted to advance the legislation, while a majority of the Republicans voted to block it. Rove dubiously claimed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “was the guy who screwed up comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. He really is not a fan of comprehensive immigration reform.”

From the June 18 edition of The O'Reilly Factor: