EckerNet.Com

Thought I’d check out the local media’s coverage of the immigration rally I attended on Sunday. I found that for the most part the coverage is “fair”. Fair in that it never actually misrepresents what happened, but still came far short of telling the whole story.

For example, this story which attempts to write off the problem as not serious in Minnesota. And then goes on to later mention the following :

Approximately 80,000 to 85,000 illegal immigrants reside in the state.

80,000 to 85,000?? I don’t think many people really realize how many that is. For example, the attendance at Sundays rally was (according to most estimates) 30,000. So take a look at the crowd below and almost TRIPLE it.

That’s right triple that crowd and you have what the media considers a “minor” immigration problem. Just imagine the scale of the serious problems in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California and other southern states.

Then we have these figures :

According to a study conducted by Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s office, those illegal immigrants cost state taxpayers $188 million each year.

Nationally, the National Research Council estimates that illegal immigrants cost the country between $11 billion and $22 billion a year.

Remember those figures the next time activists cry for more money for education or claim he need to increase taxes to rebuild New Orleans. Yet at the same time remember, in Minnesota it’s no big deal.

Another popular way to cover the issue is the liberal use of sob stories to pull at your heart strings and avoid the issue at hand.

Jessica Ramirez, a 16-year-old sophomore at Apple Valley High School, was born in Mexico and came to Minnesota eight years ago as her parents sought a better life for their family. While her English is flawless, she had to speak for her parents.

“My parents do janitorial work. They do housekeeping,” she said. “They live in fear of being stopped without papers. But, as you see, we have little kids here. They have to eat. We can’t stop working.”

Her parents are “without papers”. Not illegal. Not undocumented. Simply “without papers”.

Another wonderful tactic is to disguise the issue, and make it a story about beaucracy.

Many in the audience had their own immigration stories to tell, about themselves or their parents or their next-door neighbors. A key goal for them is to see laws that would make it easier for families to visit back and forth across international borders. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, residents of Mexico and Central and South America said, their relatives have waited years to obtain tourist visas for two-week visits.

Anaya questioned why tourists from other countries are allowed easy passage to and from the United States, but his relatives from El Salvador are not. He said he and his wife, Norma, have not seen their parents in six years.

I wonder if the fairly apparent answer ever occurs to this reporter during this interview. That answer being the possible liklihood that those who arrive on “tourist visa” from those country have a tendency not to leave again after two weeks. Explaining the understandable hesitation immigration officials would have granting said relatives a “tourist visa”. No instead it’s just another example of government red-tape and inefficiency.

And then there was the issue of what the local media doesn’t say. Like the number of foreign flags being waved on American soil. Or the foreign flags being flown above US flags. Or the general demands of the protesters themselves. The immense sense of entitlement many illegals have. The arrogance of parading around a public place making demands when you’re not even there legally in the first place. Or that some at these rallies were barely capable of speaking English, if at all.

Sure the coverage of the rallies could have been worse. But it could have been alot better.