Tag: birthright citizenship
Danziger: Born In The USA

Danziger: Born In The USA

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.

Ramos 1, Trump Zee-ro

Ramos 1, Trump Zee-ro

I am so tired of the media tap dance around Donald Trump.

Earlier this week in Iowa, Univision journalist Jorge Ramos — regularly acknowledged by mainstream media as the Walter Cronkite of Latino America — was first ejected from a Trump news conference and then allowed to return to continue a heated exchange with Trump over immigration.

Ramos was trying to get Trump to explain how he would deport 11 million immigrants and build a wall along 1,900 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Ramos was insistent. He was not waiting his turn. You could even say he was rude, an accusation that veteran journalists brag about as a badge of honor, particularly when it comes from politicians.

Trump offered no policy details beyond bragging that if he can build a 94-story building, he surely can build a fence. He told Ramos to “go back to Univision” and assured him, “I have a bigger heart than you do.”

May I just remind everyone that this man thinks he should be our president?

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the hosts and panel of journalists declared Ramos rude and grandstanding. They accused other journalists who covered the encounter as overreacting and overreaching.

Not one word of criticism for Trump. Now why would that be?

I offer this recent observation from Adweek‘s Mark Joyella:

“Fortunately for Morning Joe, talk of Donald Trump and the intensifying presidential campaign has helped the show hit a ratings milestone. A review of Nielsen ratings data shows for the first time in 2015, Morning Joe beat CNN’s New Day in the critical 25-54 demo for five consecutive weekdays.”

Hmm.

Here’s a secret most newspapers won’t tell you: The page views on their websites are skyrocketing because of Trump. This would be great, I guess, if print journalism had figured out how to monetize Web traffic. Oh well.

Trump is entertaining if you can ignore that he wants to be leader of the free world. He’s funny if you think racism and misogyny are great punchlines. If you’re not on board with that, you may think Trump deserves the toughest of questions, the ones Ramos wants to ask.

“He has to explain how he wants to deport 11 million people,” Ramos told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos after his Trump kerfuffle. “Can you imagine? How’s he going to do that? Is he going to put people in stadiums? We have to denounce that he wants to deny citizenship to children being born here. They’re citizens just like his, and it is impossible to build a 1,900-mile wall between Mexico and the United States, so that’s the kind of questions that I was asking Mr. Trump, and obviously he didn’t give any answers.”

The nerve of this man.

Also this week, Trump offered this explanation for why he wants to end birthright citizenship for children born to immigrant mothers who are here illegally:

“A woman’s getting ready to have a baby. She crosses the border for one day (and) has the baby. All of a sudden, for the next 80 years, we have to take care of” the child.

So-o-o-.

At the moment when most women (let’s call them white) can barely move and are bracing for the physical trauma of childbirth, Trump thinks Mexican women will undertake long treks fraught with danger so they can wobble across the U.S. border to drop babies — who will then spend their entire lives on the dole.

That there is a twofer.

His depiction of Mexican mothers as conniving women is a continuation of the misogyny he’s been directing at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly ever since she dared to ask him why he calls women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”

His statement also echoes the racism he has displayed throughout his campaign, starting in June when he described Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers.

For this, Washington Post fact finder Michelle Ye Hee Lee awarded him four Pinocchios:

Trump’s repeated statements about immigrants and crime underscore a common public perception that crime is correlated with immigration, especially illegal immigration. But that is a misperception; no solid data support it, and the data that do exist negate it. Trump can defend himself all he wants, but the facts just are not there.

Trump also claimed this week — my, his mouth has been busy — that gangs of immigrants who are here illegally are taking over St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri, as well as Baltimore and Chicago.

Modeling for journalists far and wide, Ferguson mayor James Knowles called him out on the lie.

“I’m assuming that Donald Trump’s saying that from his extensive experience here in St. Louis or in Ferguson,” he told KTVI-TV. “He’s never been here, as far as I know, and I’ve never seen any roving bands of illegal immigrants or gangs in Ferguson. I think he’s just trying to find headlines, and we just gave him one.”

Why, Mr. Mayor, how incredibly rude.

Connie Schultz is a a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and an essayist for Parade magazine. She is the author of two books, including …and His Lovely Wife, which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: Jorge Ramos, via Facebook.

Trump Defends Removal Of Univision Anchor From News Conference

Trump Defends Removal Of Univision Anchor From News Conference

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to toss a news anchor with the Spanish-language Univision network out of a press conference, in his latest tussle with a U.S. television personality.

“I’m not a bully,” Trump told NBC in an interview.

On Tuesday, Univision’s Jorge Ramos was removed from Trump’s news conference in Dubuque, Iowa, after the business mogul-turned-candidate said the journalist was asking a question out of turn.

“He was totally out of line last night,” Trump said of Ramos, speaking on NBC’s “Today” program.

Ramos, who has been critical of Trump’s stance on immigration, said he was waiting for his turn to ask a question on the subject when Trump ordered him out.

“He didn’t like my question and when he didn’t like my question then he motioned so the one security guard would come where I was and then threw me out of the press conference,” Ramos told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The dust-up is the latest involving a television anchor and the outspoken Trump, who also has faced criticism for his war-of-words with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly following that network’s recent Republican presidential debate.

Trump is locked in a legal battle with Univision over the network’s recent decision to cancel its contract to broadcast the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, co-owned by Trump, after he made controversial remarks about Latino immigrants.

Ramos has been equally vocal about Trump’s stance on immigration, telling CNN earlier this month that it was “not only disgraceful but dangerous” and fueling some criticism about his work as an objective journalist.

“He has to explain how he wants to deport 11 million people,” Ramos told ABC on Wednesday. “As journalists, we are not only required but we are forced to take a stand and clearly when Mr. Trump is talking about immigration in an extreme way, we have to confront him.”

Trump has called for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, deporting illegal immigrants and ending birthright citizenship.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Paul Simao)

Photo: Univision reporter Jorge Ramos (L) is escorted from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s news conference before his “Make America Great Again Rally” at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, Tuesday, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Ben Brewer

Jeb Bush Again Defends Use Of ‘Anchor Babies’ Term, Says Referred To Asians

Jeb Bush Again Defends Use Of ‘Anchor Babies’ Term, Says Referred To Asians

By Emily Stephenson

(Reuters) — U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said on Monday it was ludicrous to describe his use of the term “anchor babies” as offensive to immigrants, saying his original comments referred more to Asians coming to the United States to give birth.

Bush’s remarks came at a news conference in McAllen, Texas, near the border with Mexico, where he was asked whether using the “anchor babies” term in a radio interview last week could affect his ability to win Hispanic votes.

“My background, my life, the fact that I’m immersed in the immigrant experience, this is ludicrous for the Clinton campaign and others to suggest that somehow I’m using a derogatory term,” said Bush, whose wife was born in Mexico and who answered some questions in Spanish,

“What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there’s organized efforts — frankly it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country, having children in that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship,” he said.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of parentage.

Immigration critics sometimes use “anchor babies” to describe U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, usually from Latin America. Immigration groups say the phrase is offensive.

The former Florida governor sounded frustrated to have to address the issue again after telling reporters last week he did not regret using the term because he did not know of a better one.

After Bush used the “anchor babies” phrase last week, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton criticized him, tweeting: “They’re called babies.”

“I support the 14th Amendment. Nothing about what I’ve said should be viewed as derogatory towards immigrants at all,” Bush told reporters.

“I was focusing on a specific targeted kind of case where people are organizing to bring pregnant women into the country, where they’re having children so their children can become citizens,” Bush said. “That’s fraud.”

Federal agents earlier this year described “maternity tourism” schemes in which wealthy foreign women, particularly from China, travel to the United States to give birth so their children will have U.S. citizenship.

In a statement on Monday, the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans condemned “the use of the derogatory term ‘anchor babies.’”

Saying that because of actions ranging from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 “to now calling us ‘anchor babies,’ Asian American and Pacific Islander communities continue to be discriminated against as part of larger anti-immigrant rhetoric,” the group said.

Republicans have identified illegal immigration as a key topic for primary voters, but they want to avoid driving away Hispanic voters whose support they will need against the eventual Democratic nominee.

Some Republicans seeking the 2016 presidential nomination, including Donald Trump, have criticized across-the-board birthright citizenship.

(Reporting by Emily Stephenson and Peter Cooney; Additional reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Rigby and Leslie Adler)

Reuters: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaks at a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, United States, August 13, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young