On Tuesday morning, MSNBC's Velshi and Ruhle show devoted a segment to the sympathetic case of an illegal immigrant with a wife and children who was just recently deported to Mexico because he entered the country illegally as a 10-year-old 30 years ago.
But, while this MSNBC show was willing to spend six and a half minutes on this story, it completely ignored the illegal immigrant who, over the weekend, took Greyhound passengers hostage in Illinois. In fact, in monitoring MSNBC over the weekend, I have found no sign that the Greyhound story was covered by any MSNBC show at all since news broke early Saturday morning.
At 11:53 a.m. ET on the January 16 show, co-host Ali Velshi introduced the segment: "Now to a gut-wrenching story from Michigan. A Detroit area man has been taken from his wife and children, ordered to leave the United States because he's an undocumented immigrant brought here from Mexico when he was just 10 years old."
Appearing as guest was Cindy Garcia, the wife of deported immigrant Jose Garcia. According to her, her husband had no criminal record since entering the country, and a mistake in paperwork by an attorney who was trying to help him legalize his status had resulted in ICE beginning to target him about a decade ago.
After the segment, co-hosts Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle engaged in back and forth commentary on the subject:
ALI VELSHI: That's not what this is meant to be about, right? Jorge is not the poster child for what we have to fix in our immigration system.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Ali, you and I both respect the rule of law. What I don't understand is, there are huge problems in this country. It was freezing in New York this weekend in New England. There were kids who were homeless, who had nothing to eat There are failing schools -- there are millions of people --
VELSHI: And there are criminals out there, some of whom are undocumented, in this country. Jorge is not the problem -- or he's not anywhere high up on the list of problems.
RUHLE: The opioid crisis is something that millions of Americans are worried about. Going after 21 Seven Elevens and their working employees doesn't seem like a massive problem, or ripping Jorge Garcia away from his family.
Recently, the two MSNBC hosts notably used their show to complain about the Trump administration moving to deport illegal immigrants who have been arrested -- but never charged -- for gang-related activity.
