Univision anchor Jorge Ramos made yet another appearance on Anderson Cooper's AC360 - this time, to pontificate on a potential Trump deal on immigration, to lay down his own markers of what should make a deal, and to otherwise continue to push the talking-point driven racialist agenda that he passes off to his Univision viewers as journalism.
Watch as Ramos deflected a simple question from Cooper into what a DACA deal should consist of into a flowery defense of chain migration, on the February 12, 2018 edition of CNN's AC360:
ANDERSON COOPER: Don't you think it is up to the Democrats to make some concessions here? Since they aren't in control of either chamber of Congress. I mean, Republicans do hold the cards.
JORGE RAMOS: Well, the fact is that Republicans with this negotiation, they want to change the essence, I think, of the United States. I mean, do they really want to make America white again? Is that...is that the deal? What I've seen from the Democratic side, Anderson, and from talking with the Dreamers, is that they are willing to negotiate DACA for a few miles of wall, maybe 300, 350 miles of wall. That is as much as they can go. But to tell them that from now on, everything is going to change, that chain migration has to be stopped, in other words, that family reunification is no longer going to be the immigration principle that is going to guide us into this tolerant, diverse, multicultural, multiracial country...I don't see it. So the way I see it is - DACA for just a few miles of wall but nothing else.
Ramos' intransigence on immigration policy is such that he is unable to answer a simple question on whether or not the onus of compromise falls on the Democrats. Monday's appearance on AC360 was not fundamentally different from what you see from Ramos when the teleprompter is off: a litany of emo talking points and racialist bromides wrapped in straw men and false premises. For example, Ramos' point on chain migration is belied by the fact that the main driver of Hispanic population growth in the United States is no longer immigration but live births.
Ramos obnoxiously doubles down on the "Make America White Again" talking point when asked about the merits, if you will, of a merit-based system as opposed to what is in place now where chain migration/family reunification is the main locus of our system:
COOPER: To those in the Republican Party who are talking about chain migration and see it as an issue and talk about merit-based immigration, what is in your opinion wrong with merit based immigration, in terms of somebody's professional capability- somebody's educational background?
RAMOS: Well, I think family reunification has merits too. I think it has worked beautifully since 1965. I mean, look. 40% of all of the founders of Fortune 500 companies are immigrants or sons of immigrants. So in other words, this is a system that works and when they talk about chain migration, what they are really saying is, "you know, we want to have a white country again. We want to go back to 1965 when almost 80%, 90% of the people were non-hispanic whites". That is no longer the idea of this country. I think we had agreed, after 1965, that we wanted a diverse, multicultural, multiracial country. And the way they want to it is, I think, they want to reverse this incredible demographic trend that by 2044 is going to make America a minority-majority country.
Why does Ramos go back to the racial well time and time again when faced with the very real possibility of an impending deal on immigration?
If you'll recall this classic from almost three years ago, when Ramos addressed his daughter's class at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, you'll see that: (a) Ramos knows full well that immigration isn't driving growth among Hispanics anymore, and (b) there's a much simpler reason for keeping this broken system in place:
RAMOS: I think the future of Spanish-language media is assured for decades, simply, for a very simple reason: In spite of the fact that the majority of the growth within the Hispanic community is coming from people being born here, we still have one to two million immigrants, legally and illegally coming in every single year. Most of them speak Spanish. So, therefore, we have a market that is growing and growing.
It has to be said that Dreamers, having grown and acculturated in the United States, do not get their news from Jorge Ramos or Univision. Hence, the insistence on demanding that as much of the status quo as possible remain in place.
Ramos' segment on AC360 is really a microcosm of the entire politics of immigration reform. Those who benefit the most from keeping the current broken system in place will howl the loudest at the mere mention of reform, and usually at the expense of those who stand to benefit the most from reform. Ramos basically admits that there is a deal to be made before arrogating for himself the best interests of the Dreamers and DACA recipients and trashing the deal in the hopes of preserving a partisan wedge.
Ramos, already a U.S. citizen, can afford the luxury of purity, even if it is at the expense of the Dreamers he purports to champion.
Below is an additional transcript of a portion of the above-referenced interview as aired on CNN on February 12, 2018, for context, highlighting of hypocrisies, grievance talking points and Ramos' admissions that: (a) the issue of whether Mexico will pay for the wall is unimportant, and (b) the partisan interest in scuttling a Trump immigration deal:
COOPER: If the President does get the wall built, or at least part of the wall, does get a deal on DACA, that would be a big win for him, don't you think - politically?
RAMOS: Probably. But it's - again - a useless wall. First, Mexico is not going to pay for that, then it's not going to stop immigrants and drugs from coming into this country...
COOPER: Do you think that it would matter to the President's base, at this point, whether or not Mexico pays for it?
RAMOS: I don't know. He keeps on insisting on that. However, I agree, that's not really important. If he wants a wall, if he wants...Look, the border between Mexico and the United States is almost 2,000 miles. There are only physical barriers in 700 miles. If President Trump wants another 300, or 350 - and with that, we can get a DREAM Act, I think most people would accept that. But to go beyond that is going to be impossible. Again, what we are asking the Dreamers, is to legalize them and then to deport their parents and Democrats, believe me, they don't want to have 100 kids the following morning in their offices telling them that they betrayed them. So as much as they want a deal here, it would be a wall for DACA but nothing else.
COOPER: So, to immigrants being protected by DACA right now, how much faith do you think they should have that something is going to be resolved, that their protections will be extended by the March 5th deadline?
RAMOS: Well, and probably nothing will be extended after March the 5th. That's the risk. But there's also Plan B. and Plan B is DACA, or probably real immigration reform, not this immigration revenge, after 2020. I mean, unfortunately that might be Plan B. But I don't think the Dreamers will take anything that will affect their parents. Look, when somebody is trying to hurt your parents, and your brothers and your sisters, you will always remember. So I don't see any way in which the Dreamers can accept anything that is going to hurt their own family. I don't think they're gonna take it.
