Yellow Journalism Alive And Well In Mainstream Newspapers: Immigration Propaganda Reaching New Heights

by PUA Staff                            January 19, 2009

This letter was sent to one main stream journalist but it could apply to most newspaper journalist in the US. We felt it was very educational so we posted it here for your review.

RE article: Immigration Agents casting their nets beyond fugitive list by Leslies Berestein / Union Tribune

As past president and founder of the Patriot Union of America, which extensively studied and reported on the immigration issue, I find your article well slanted and far from competent journalism standards. The article clearly assumes a pro-anarchy approach to law enforcement and rule-of-law and fails balance perspective on the issues. It amounts to reprehensible propaganda and nothing more.

Allow me to enlighten you and the UT.

First, there is no such thing as an "immigrant communities." Immigrants live everywhere in the US and come in all races and past nationalities. There are hundreds of immigrants living within a few miles of my home but I do not live in some sort of specially classified immigrant community---at least until now, I have not seen pedestrians strolling around with the Star Of David or some other identifier painted on their shirts so that any observer, including an astute reporter, might magically know where the immigrant communities begin and end? Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, or enclaves anywhere can not be classified as immigrant cities or communities, so why do you use such obfuscating and agenda filled language in your reporting? If your standards are so substandard with simple nomenclature, might we conclude your entire article is therefore suspect as well? 

Second, according to ICE/INS and other government reports used by many nonprofit organs to compile a more comprehensive assessment of an otherwise poorly tracked illegal immigration issue by government, the average illegal immigrant in the US has committed at least one felony to either arrive in the US illegally (ICE reports over 90% of border trespassers have entered the US more than once illegally, which is a felony on the second illegal entrance - so are visa overstays once adjudicated and ignored) or to secure illegal work documents, fraudulent government assistance, evade taxation, commit or aid others with identity theft, and the list goes on and includes over 30 routinely committed felonies by so called "immigrants." Why do these facts always escape immigration articles?

Why do most journalist insult "legal immigrants" by lumping in criminal immigrants and simple-mindedly calling them all "immigrants" when discussing this issue? You are obviously not aware that over 10% of all those here illegally have no intentions of immigrating, according to DHS--many are gang members, Mexican mafia, criminals evading prosecution in their own country, migrant farm workers doing seasonal work on both sides of the border, etc. Again, your genuine lack of concern for applying accurate nomenclature tends to impeach your entire article. All journalist should be using the only accurate, neutrally acceptable terminology, "illegal alien" but why is that word always avoided? Why do we apply the insulting word of "immigrant" and lump in legal, respectable immigrants?

Where is the mention in such article that INS/ICE estimates that over 78,000 illegal immigrants (2004) are considered potential terrorists? Where is your article's concern for US citizen families that could be harmed by such potential terrorists hidden among the more benign classes of criminal / illegal aliens? After all, if only 20 are actual terrorists, is that not enough to take down a couple of New York skyscrapers and kill 3,000 innocent people? Do we care about that anymore?

There is not one set of multi-source data and reporting in the US from competent organizations that can substantiate one benefit or reason for supporting criminal immigration and yet your newspaper takes such a immoral and unethical stance against law-abiding Americans--the vast majority of which value the rule-of-law over foreign interlopers who clearly do not. Why is that? What agenda are you pushing? What is the end game you are promoting---the break-down of our legal system, rule-of-law, etc.? The watering down of respect for government and orderly society? the elimination of immigration laws or respect thereof toward assuring overpopulation and environmental destructionism or unsustainable resources? Anarchy at the expense of "open border" insanity that has no critical thinking behind it? 

What is the end game being promoted by you and UT because it clearly is not one concerned with humanity--if that were the case, the focus would be on millions of US citizens that could be killed by terrorists aka criminal immigrants and why ICE's work is so important and why their shortcomings are in need of more of our support. Let's never forget the fact that 90% of the 9-11 hijackers were in the US illegally and that the 109th Congress officially reported that had our immigration laws been aggressively enforced, 9-11 would have been prevented! Is that an inconvenient fact for your agenda? 

Most articles such as yours on the immigration issue clearly support aiding terrorism and criminal interlopers to the detriment of US citizens--that is the true end game they promote whether the journalist acknowledges this fact or not. Lax law enforcement aid terrorist and by the time this fact is officially proven to the level appeared required before the press will properly report on it, millions of Americans could have been slaughtered---all thanks to yellow journalism and an uninformed public unable to press its leaders to stronger enforcement action and society protection.

Only propagandist newspapers and yellow journalist typically quote ethnocentric groups (i.e. MALDEF) or racist, transnational groups such as La Raza (a fringe, left-wing radical group funded mostly by non-US citizens---a group that the majority of US citizen Hispanics claim they do not agree with or support) without providing balance. Where are the quotes in your article from Hispanic majority groups like "You Don't Speak For Me?" Where are the counter views and opinions clearly absent in your article from hard working groups such as NumbersUSA or Center For Immigration Studies, or F.A.I.R. or Heritage Foundation or Judicial Watch and other pro-law, pro-American, pro-legal immigration groups concerned with the safety of US citizen families? Where is the balanced reporting?

No balance equals skewed opinion and propaganda and that equals yellow journalism (as a fellow journalist, I know this standard, so why don't you)?

Such important and competent full story facts are rarely reported by propaganda newspapers and agenda bearing journalist and your article clarifies the UT's position when it deliberately fails to disclose these and other key balancing facts in such articles. When will our extremist liberal press understand the difference between LEGAL and CRIMINAL immigration--the former most everyone supports, the latter should never be condoned or aided. 

In short, all facts in witness today assure all US citizens and legal immigrants that criminal immigration and illegal aliens are a major burden on society and US taxpayers and must be abated for the sake of both the rule-of-law and government integrity, as well as for national security and security of our families. This is the true story and one that is not being told by today's lax journalists.

The next time you report on a person who commits a crime and must go to jail---and I mean any person who is not an immigrant, I would like you to do some digging and report on how the family and children will be split up when that criminal is made to pay for his crime and sent to jail. Tell us how the innocent children will be effected when "Joe The Bank Robber" has to go to jail for 6 years. If you're going to toss around the propagandistic emotional tripe regarding criminal aliens (who are not sent to jail for their crimes but merely repatriated as punishment), then the least you can do is show some reporting consistency and give great emotional appeal to the country's US citizen murders, rapists, child molesters, terrorists, and others who will also be broken apart from their families when the legal dust settles on their due justice. Yes, children suffer and are separated from their criminal parents---but the parents, not the system, made that choice when the crime was committed---it's called personal responsibility! Try balanced reporting next time!

I hope you and all journalist across the US will begin to dramatically raise your reporting standards on this national security issue and give readers what they need to know to make better informed decisions about their government and leaders. Give us more balance and competent reporting. Remember, Nazi Germany created one of the greatest propaganda machines in history that aided in that country's eventual ruination and today's American journalists and organs must rethink their propagandist, corporate agendas and once again side with US citizens, their families, and their right to know first and foremost or this nation, too, will soon be lost.

Respectfully Yours,

Xelan Bonn
President (Retired)
Patriot Union of America