Have you ever taken a serious look at how the mainstream media covers immigration? There isn’t a unitary narrative about migrants. There are actually multiple, contradictory storylines, and that’s deliberate.
So, instead of following the facts to the truth, we in the news-consuming public are served up a series of poorly researched verbal snapshots that are always designed to portray immigrants as victims and Americans as oppressors.
Some examples serve to illustrate the point: The Louisiana Illuminator recently published an article bemoaning the lack of translation services available for migrants being held in immigration detention.
According to the Illuminator:
Non-English-speaking immigrants detained in Louisiana are being denied access to translation and interpretation services, leaving them unable to request medical care or file complaints about abusive treatment, immigrants’ rights advocates say.
Although it never explicitly says so, the Illuminator implies that the United States is exploiting migrants’ lack of ability to speak English in order to deport them more quickly. How could a decent upstanding nation do that and still look at itself in the mirror? After all, these folks just want health care, clean underwear (yes, that’s actually in the article) and due process, if only they could ask for it.
Contrast that with a recent article put out by National Public Radio (NPR) claiming that “without immigrants, America’s job growth would have stalled.”
There’s no need to read between the lines in this one. Its painfully obvious that NPR is saying “Wake up America, if we don’t open our borders, we’re economically doomed!” In order to prove its point, NPR interviewed the owner of a Dayton, Ohio manufacturing firm that has turned to migrants to fill empty jobs. According to NPR, at this factory, “Bilingual employees are paid extra to act as translators and the company is setting up an English class.”
Anyone with a capacity for critical thought should immediately be able to see that both of these narratives can’t be true at the same time and neither one paints an accurate picture of reality.
The Illuminator asks us to believe that foreign language speakers who managed to get themselves to the U.S., and insert themselves into American society, are suddenly rendered helpless because they can’t speak to someone in their own language. That simply doesn’t track. People who plan lengthy globe-spanning journeys and manage to clothe, house and feed themselves in a new country are not the type to put up with soiled undergarments or an untreated medical condition because they don’t speak the local tongue.
Moreover, the vast majority of aliens who have entered the U.S. during the Biden administration have arranged their own entry, using the infamous CBP One app. In order to use that app, they have to be able to read and have some familiarity with how to use a cell phone or a computer.
NPR, on the other hand, insists that migrants are primed for success and we need their help, not the other way around. Migrants are finding and interviewing for open positions, saving American companies. And, in the workplace, some migrants act as translators for others – they don’t need outside help. Plus, they’re all learning English, as well as the skills necessary to do their jobs. That picture of migrants doesn’t track, either.
But let’s assume solely for the sake of argument that we accept the Illuminator narrative at face value.
Then how can the NPR narrative be true? Because it isn’t likely that migrants who can’t wrangle a new pair of underwear because they can’t speak English are driving America’s economic engine.
On the other hand, migrants capable of saving America’s economy shouldn’t be having trouble saving themselves, even when they aren’t fluent speakers of English.
The fact is that both of these narratives can’t be true at the same time and they are not. They are designed to ensure that unchecked mass migration is always portrayed as a net good and that anyone who opposes it is cast as a xenophobic villain. And if migrants (many of whom showed up here uninvited and trespassed) want to stay here, break our rules, and keep doing things their own way – rather than the American way – then it’s a moral imperative that we accommodate them.
But both of these storylines they are intentional distractions. When you strip away the politically-motivated mythology, migrants are neither inherently helpless nor intrinsically entrepreneurial. They are people, just like any other people. As such, it’s not discriminatory to ask them to abide by the same rules that everyone else in the United States observes. Nor is it particularly harsh or unfair to ask them to have at least some familiarity with the language in which America conducts her official business.
The United States belongs to Americans. All of our immigration policies should be designed to protect the safety and security of the American public. Immigrants – particularly migrant law breakers – should not receive preferential treatment solely because they are foreign. Neither the inability to communicate in English, nor a willingness to work, should be an excuse for jumping our borders or breaking our laws.
Matt O’Brien is the Director of Investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the co-host of IRLI’s podcast “No Border, No Country.” Immediately prior to working for IRLI he served as an immigration judge. He has nearly 30 years of experience in immigration law and policy, having held numerous positions within the Department of Homeland Security.
Image: Screen shot from DW News video, via YouTube
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
