Sunday, November 16, 2014

WINGNUTTV 8

In September I began tutoring, once a week, a Central American teen living at Bethany Christian Services. This teen, as do the others in Bethany's ESL program, have refugee status.  That is, they have legal status according to federal law.  But you wouldn't know that if you had watched our local WOODTV 8's hysterical dreck  "A Secret School for Illegal Immigrants."

I never watch local TV news (I let my mother-in-law fill me on local news--typically stories of crime and other lurid happenings), but a friend told me about this news story from a year ago September.  I accessed it a couple of weeks ago, but evidently WOODTV has since then taken it down from its Youtube site, though you can still see the trailer for the story here.

This "Target 8 Investigating" story was bad in so many ways, I'm not sure where to begin.  So I'll begin with this.  I talked with a Bethany employee about this news story, and she told me the reporters came under false pretenses.  Ostensibly, Channel 8 wanted to know about Bethany's work with what are known under federal law as Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC).  Actually, Channel 8 was after a story that would sensationalize the issue of undocumented immigrants.  So strike one, WOODTV, for irresponsible journalism.

Strike two? The title of the story. Bethany Christian Services is not a "secret school." It does not hide its work with refugee minors.  It just doesn't advertise it given that some of its minors are leery of the gangs that scared them out of their Central American country, or of the smugglers that helped them escape.  Moreover, they are not illegal as I noted earlier.  These students have legal status as refugees (under the title Unaccompanied Minor Refugees--a step up from UAC), and some even have green cards (Legal Permanent Residents--LPRs). The news story's title to my mind is libel.

Strike three. The voice-over narration. The male voice sounded like some reality show about undercover cops rather than a story about refugee minors. Melodrama and innuendo aren't journalism.

Strike four.  The claim that the Obama administration is secretly moving UACs into Michigan unbeknownst to Michiganders and its lawmakers. Apparently, it's only a secret to Michiganders and lawmakers that make no effort to do any research on the matter.  They may want to check out the Department of Homeland Security's website that explains the process regarding UACs, here (this took me a nanosecond to locate).

Strike five isn't really about WOODTV, but my district's congressional Representative, Justin Amash (who appears in the trailer).  He claims he's a libertarian, but why then would he argue against the free movement of people?  No doubt he's playing to the nativists in Michigan.

President Obama has said if Congress doesn't move on comprehensive immigration reform, he will issue another round of executive orders to give the eleven million or so undocumented immigrants a route to legal status, and to fix this problem:
We're deporting people that shouldn't be deported. We're not deporting folks that are dangerous and need to be deported.
No doubt, should he do this, there will be another round of hysteria about "amnesty." I wonder what the hallowed Ronald Reagan would say about all this? This is the president who signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that granted amnesty to around three million, and, given family reunification policies, drew in many more immigrants.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to work with this not-so-secret school, tutoring a very legal immigrant minor. A fine young man that has fled gang violence that, in part, my compatriots have encouraged--with their voracious demand for illicit drugs. A young man who suffers from migraines due to the stress of adjusting to life here, and missing his family. A young man who dreams of going to college for an engineering degree. I am happy to help him.