Tucker Carlson and Univision senior news anchor Jorge Ramos resumed their ongoing argument over immigration. This time, with the Central American migrant caravan as a backdrop.
As one might expect, there was not much deviation from the usual Carlson-Ramos colloquy, except that this time, Ramos was a bit more candid about what he characterized as the United States' duty towards immigrants and refugees, especially those from Central America and Mexico.
The segment's signature exchange was actually the opening question. Watch as Ramos shows a bit more candor when it comes to his true feelings about the United States:
TUCKER CARLSON: Jorge, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.
JORGE RAMOS: Great to be here. Thank you.
CARLSON: So the first, and maybe the most important question is: why should we let these asylum-seekers, these migrants into our country?
RAMOS: I think the United States is being a hostile and even dangerous country for refugees and for immigrants. And I think we have a long tradition of being generous - of accepting other immigrants from countries where they are fleeing violence and poverty and lack of democracy. I think that's precisely what the United States is. And at the end, Tucker, I think it's simply a matter of deciding what kind of country do we want to be. And it seems at this point that we are talking about a few hundred refugees and putting it in context from the 65 million refugees that there are in the world. The United States accepted only 84,000 in 2016 and with President Trump it's going to be even less. So it's simply a matter of deciding what kind of country do we want to be.
CARLSON: Well, we've accepted about 13 million refugees, economic refugees who are in our country now illegally. But back up for one second. You said this is a hostile, dangerous place for refugees? Then why would you want them to come here if the United States is so dangerous?
So unhinged is Jorge Ramos that he answered a simple question regarding the merits of this current crop of asylum seekers with a swipe at America itself. Without ever directly answering Carlson's question, Ramos then proceeded to launch into Blame America First mode, demanding the United States' acceptance of the caravan because of:
- The effect of American demand for drugs on Central America.
- Our gun laws.
- Alleged longstanding tradition of unfettered refugee and immigrant acceptance because of America's wealth and democracy.
At every point, as he sees it, the USA seems to have done something bad and the atonement is an open border.
If only Ramos had the guts to say out loud that the reason that failing Univision so strongly advocates for an open border, generally, and for the caravan, specifically. Never mind all the gassy stuff about America's place in the hemisphere.
The annual caravan brings in new viewers for him, and is simply best for Univision's business.
JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR ANCHOR, UNIVISION: 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.
