YOU ARE NOT ALONE
From our jails to hospitals, the media trades real immigration articles for victimhood stories
BY KEN WARD

Ken Ward is opinion page editor of the Press Journal in Vero Beach, Fla. A Las Vegas resident from 1990-2002, he was a freelance columnist with the R-J and assistant managing editor at the Sun. E-mail him at kenricward@juno.com  Other stories by Ken Ward

As the immigration debate resumes on Capitol Hill, Americans will hear everyone's voice - except theirs. Labor unions, big business, chambers of commerce, university think tanks, religious organizations, social-service agencies, and La Raza all support liberalized immigration policies, including amnesty. The only "debate" is over how many illegals get a pass to citizenship, and how fast.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats have promised to pass a "comprehensive" (i.e., generous) package that will be even more wide open than the one approved by the Senate last session.

If Reid makes good on his pledge, the Heritage Foundation figures that 67 million more foreigners will enter the United States in the next 20 years. That surge surely excites multiculturalists and global capitalists who lust for Third-World sensibilities and an endless flow of cheap labor.

But Americans have a different desire. In opinion poll after opinion poll, U.S. citizens say they want LESS immigration, not more. They want existing laws enforced, not nullified.

When given a choice of immigration "reforms," two out of three respondents to a survey by The Polling Company last fall favored the House-passed bill that tightened immigration quotas, strengthened border controls and toughened workplace enforcement. Only one in three supported the leaky Senate version that Reid et. al are jury-rigging.

Among the other findings:

•  79 percent agree that "legalizing illegal immigrants would only encourage more illegal immigrants to come to America."
• 65 percent say quality of life will suffer if the nation's population grows by more than one-third in the next 50 years. (The projection if immigration is not controlled.)
• 62 percent say media coverage of immigration is superficial and unbalanced.

This last point is worth examining, because it helps to explain the disconnect between public opinion and lawmakers' actions.

We've known for some time that business pushes hard for loose or unenforced immigration laws. Companies - from big, flag-waving outfits like Wal-Mart and The Home Depot to Joe Blow's Stucco & Drywall that hire day laborers off the streets - will do just about anything to keep the mojo going. It's just business.

Meantime, American workers, especially younger ones on the lower rungs of the job ladder, find their paychecks and employment opportunities shrinking. And, of course, every taxpayer gets to pick up the tab for the rising social-welfare costs that bottom-feeding employers shove off onto the public. This is no surprise. Even Karl Marx understood that capitalism thrives on surplus labor. The cheaper, the better.

But what is surprising is how the national media fail to responsibly report this. See if you agree or disagree with the following statement: "Media coverage of illegal immigrants is mostly devoted to human-interest stories like how illegals risk their lives to enter the country or their lives once here, rather than the costs they create and the Americans who may be harmed by their being here."

As noted above, 62 percent of the national survey's respondents agreed with that description. Whatever mainstream media you read, hear or view, you're probably nodding as well.

Politicians, like the rest of us, are influenced by what they see (and don't see) in the press. And as long as news outlets regurgitate a daily diet of fluffy "human-interest" stories and pro-immigration essays, congressmen can continue to do the bidding of corporate campaign contributors while paying only lip service to the public's wishes.

Illustrating this double-speak, Congress last year authorized construction of a fence along 370 miles of the Mexican border. But it did not FUND the project. Though the Senate voted 83-16 to build the barrier, Reid now declares it's dead.

Few in the media bother to expose such chutzpah. Fewer even mention, let alone explain, the historical context and social ramifications of the ongoing, unprecedented illegal influx into this country.

When the editorial pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal eerily echo the cause of illegal aliens - and slander immigration critics as bigots (if they're acknowledged at all) - the Democrat-Republican duopoly receives copious political cover.

From our jails to schools to hospitals, there are serious stories to be reported. But it takes honest effort to follow the money and divulge inconvenient truths.

It's so much easier (and politically correct) to trot out a hapless immigrant and tell another tale of victimhood, racial profiling or successful "grassroots" activism (like campaigns that have led to 17 states allowing voters, e.g., illegals, to cast ballots with NO identification).

All the while, craven politicians count their corporate cash and enjoy softball coverage as they pander to the ever-growing "Hispanic vote." No wonder your voice isn't heard, or heeded. LW