Fox News ignored its own reporting in order to attack Hillary Clinton’s plan to open an Office of Immigrant Affairs as a “neon sign” offering “unlimited room, free room and board, food, shelter, everything you need” to illegal immigrants.
According to an April 13 article on Fox News Latino, the purpose of Clinton’s department is to “coordinate policies across the federal government and with state and local governments as well.” There was no indication in that article that the office would have anything to do with illegal immigration.
A Clinton aide told Fox News that the Democratic front-runner’s proposed office would be meant to ensure that immigrants and refugees become integrated into the communities they join and would implement the recommendation made in a 2014 Obama administration task force on immigration.
“Clinton will work to implement the task force’s recommendations, and create the first-ever federal Office of Immigrant Affairs to make sure that there is a dedicated place in the White House where integration services are studied and coordinated across the government,” the aide told Fox News.
But Fox News (and Fox Business) host Neil Cavuto deliberately tried to scare his panel by claiming that the office was all about giving federal money to “illegal immigrants.”
CAVUTO: Did you hear that? An Office of Immigrant Affairs. What that office would be about is illegal immigrants and their affairs, their issues. I don’t know, Charles Payne, that kind of worries me right off. The setting of an institution, an American institution that would address those who aren’t Americans.
Panelists Payne, Gerri Willis and Scott Martin kicked up the fear mongering a notch.
PAYNE: I feel like we’ve already got this sort of red carpet telling illegals to come into this country. This would be the neon sign above it blinking you know, saying, “Hey unlimited room, free room and board, food, shelter, everything you need.
WILLIS: And now you’d have an 800 number for it, you know what I mean? Now, you’d have an 800 number for it.
PAYNE: An 800 number, an escalator, I - really, it’s absolutely outrageous.
CAVUTO: At least she didn’t right away call it a Department of Illegal Immigrant Concerns and Affairs. …If you want to talk about rights for Americans, it’s one thing, but deal with those who are legally here.
[…]
MARTIN: It’s very cheap, it’s very populist. I think she’s concerned about the minority vote. …I’m for immigration, legal immigration. But if you’re going to let all these guys in and gals in and undercut the American worker, you’re looking at doing more damage to the economy than a Johnny Manziel house party.
So was Fox Latino pandering to Latinos? Or was this panel pandering to the angry white vote? Or both?
Watch it below, from the April 16 Cavuto on Business.