After Trump rescinded DACA, recipients made up less than 10 percent of cable news guests

Other guests included members of the “nativist lobby” and anti-immigrant hard-liners 

Written by Julie Alderman

Published

On the day President Donald Trump announced his plan to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, leaving hundreds of thousands of people at new risk of deportation, less than 10 percent of guests who spoke about the policy on cable news were DACA recipients.

On September 5, the Trump administration announced that it would end DACA, which The Washington Post described as “an Obama-era program that allowed young undocumented immigrants to live in the country without fear of deportation.” As the Post noted, Trump’s decision “sparked fears ... that nearly 800,000 immigrants who have lived illegally in the United States since they were children would be subject to removal.”


Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

Out of 245 guests on September 5 who discussed DACA on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, 24 were DACA recipients, making up only 9.8 percent of total guest appearances.

  • Of 102 guest appearances (guests who appeared on more than one program during the day were counted more than once) on CNN, only 12, or 11.8 percent, were made by DACA recipients.

  • Of 59 guest appearances on Fox, only six, or 10.2 percent, were made by DACA recipients.

  • And of 84 guest appearances on MSNBC, only six, or 7.1 percent, were made by DACA recipients.

During this same time period, there were five appearances on cable news by members of the “nativist lobby,” a group of organizations with ties to white nationalists and a mission to drastically limit legal as well as illegal immigration. Cable news guests included Kris Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and a Breitbart.com columnist who has authored anti-immigrant legislation and once worked for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, and Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. Additionally, several other anti-immigrant zealots appeared across cable news to attack DACA and cheer Trump on for repealing the order:

  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was leading a group of state attorneys general that had pledged to legally attack DACA if the administration did not revoke the policy, appeared on cable news three times during the same period of time.

  • Notoriously anti-immigrant conservative radio host Laura Ingraham appeared on Fox to stump for Trump’s new policy, saying, “Americans are dreamers, too.”

  • Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer appeared twice on cable news to claim that former President Barack Obama’s DACA executive action was “illegal.”

  • CNN legal commentator and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli appeared twice on cable news to defend Trump’s actions and falsely allege that DACA “is unconstitutional.”

When they did appear on cable news, DACA recipients were able to offer a unique perspective of the fears and challenges they now face under the Trump administration. On CNN’s New Day, Angelica Villalobos, who came to the United States as an 11-year-old, spoke about telling her children that she might be deported:

MSNBC correspondent Mariana Atencio spoke with one DACA recipient whose Houston-area home was flooded by Harvey and now has to worry about possible deportation:

And Fox’s Bryan Llenas spoke with Hernan Venegas, a DACA recipient who explained that the program enabled him to become an emergency medical technician (EMT) and serve as a volunteer firefighter during Harvey:

This is not the first time media have marginalized a population that’s most at risk or most impacted by the news of the day:

  • Following the release of Trump’s Muslim ban, prime-time cable news virtually ignored Muslim voices.

  • After a deadly shooting during an Orlando LGBTQ club’s Latin night, cable news underrepresented LGBTQ, Hispanic, and Muslim voices.

  • When Trump rolled back federal trans-inclusive nondiscrimination protections, cable news hosted merely five transgender guests, while Fox News hosted none at all.

  • Minority voices were largely excluded from cable news after Trump announced that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, even though studies show that climate change disproportionately affects black and Hispanic communities.

  • And cable news failed to offer diverse voices after Senate Republicans released a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), even though African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, women, and low-income people greatly benefited from the ACA and stood to lose greatly if it was eliminated.

Methodology

Media Matters searched Nexis and SnapStream for DACA, dream, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and all iterations of the word immigrant for significant discussions on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC on September 5 between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. as President Donald Trump announced his decision to rescind DACA. Guests were coded once for every program they appeared on. People who appeared in pre-recorded news packages were also included in this study.