Latinos Blast CBS, Compare Couric To Dobbs, For Outrageous Immigration Story

As if Katie Couric didn't already have enough problems.

Weighed down by record-low ratings at the anchor desk of "CBS Evening News," and by reports suggesting she will leave that post two years before her multimillion-dollar contract expires, Couric now has civil rights groups -- mostly Hispanic -- on her back.

And for good reason.

The CBS newscast that carries her name recently aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States. The news story challenged the broader constitutional law of birthright citizenship and stated -- without providing the correct context -- that the births cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[oregonrain]

May !st is NOW immigration day ? When did we start this ? I happen to like Lou Dobbs , and , I agree with him when it comes to ILLEGAL immigrants , no matter what country they come from . This administration will do nothing about the flood of illegals coming into this country from mexico , it is all part of Bush's North American Union . Dont forget people , Bush did this while bypassing the American public , as well as congress.

[randyjet]

By the way, it is fairly easy to know who is Mexican or other Latin American and who is not. If a person speaks NO English or very limited English, one can safely assume that they are NOT from the US.. Also, if they speak Spanish, you can tell as well since they use different words from Texans in Spanish. Many US students who speak Spanglish at home, have to learn proper Spanish in school too.

[randyjet]

Before I met my wife,she lived in McAllen which is on the border. She lost her business and then got cancer and had no health insurance. She went to the doctor who told her that since she had no insurance and no money, she would have to DIE! His partner came back into town and lied on the forms to get her the operation she needed. Then she needed chemo to get better. The county would NOT pay for that because they did not have any money because of all the illegals they were treating. So despite having supported the county for 15 years with taxes and jobs she created, she got nothing when she was in need. She was told to come back in a year and they might be able to get her the treatment, but the money was all dedicated at that time. Of course, she would be dead by that time.

The FACT is that any person who has a border crossing card can come to McAllen legally and get free treatment at the ER. There are over 5 MILLION such cards folks. Virtually most Mexicans who live on the border have them. They do not need a visa either and which is why so many Mexicans work in McAllen illegally and go back home every night.

[trinity]

The illegal immigration problem has become much like other hot-button issues. It's all black and white. You have LaRaza on one side advocating open borders and benefits for all immigrants regardless of residency status and onthe other side the Patriots who want to build a big wall and kick everyone out. The fact is that this issue is very very gray. Both sides have valid points and both sides have insanely invalid ones. For example, jobs... Yes illegals take jobs Americans don't want...who wants to pick strawberries in the hot sun for neverending hours making pennies? They keep the prices of produce fairly cheap for American consumers. On the other hand, illegals are also taking good paying jobs and driving down wages for all blue-collar jobs. Just look at the construction industry, once good paying union jobs like roofers, carpenters, plasters/drywall installers are now taken by undocumented workers making a fraction of the wages. Even when construction around here was booming, many union carpenters were sitting at home because contractors were hiring low wage sub-contractors using undocumented workers. However, all you hear is one side or the other, what about the reality? I really don't think this issue will be resolved simply because no one wants to admit that both sides have valid points and both sides need to be addressed.

[JohnJames]

Then there's the restaurant and food service industry. As a teenager in the 70's I worked as a busboy in a local restaurant. There were three cooks - the two owners and a third hired cook named Larry. Larry was able to support a wife and children and pay a mortgage and own a decent car on what he earned from that job. That's unimaginable today. Today Larry would be Juan who rides a bycicle to work and lives in an apartment with eight friends and cousins. The US is becoming an ever more two-tiered society like Mexico or Brazil and it's not a pretty picture.

[jvarga]

"Yes illegals take jobs Americans don't want...who wants to pick strawberries in the hot sun for neverending hours making pennies?'

So the solution, instead of paying a fair wage, is to import slave labor?

[sandiegoconservative]

Nope, and that is wrong. Get the prison system involved and get prisoners to do just that.

[BillLumbergh]

The Texas comptroller estimated that illegal immigrants cost Texas hospitals 1.3 billion dollars in 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-21-immigrant-healthcare_N.htm

[jukesgrrl]

Maybe the Catholic Church should be coughing up some money for Mexican healthcare. Mexico's overpopulation is largely their creation.

[clr2]

All ILLEGAL ALIENS should be deported, those who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined, and we should return to the original intent of the 14th amendment and do away with ANCHOR BABIES. We spend BILLIONS to provide health care and an education to people who don't belong here. We need to use this money on our own poor.

[ICUP]

It amazes me that alleged Progressives would argue in favor of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants depress wages for the working class. Look at the landscaping industry. I worked as a landscaper in the early 90s and made $12/hour. I recently talked to my former boss and he pays his "undocumented" workers the about two-thirds of that now. We need to end the influx of cheap labor and force businesses to pay fair wages.

Also, maybe the Mexicans ought to try and fix their own country before they start colonizing ours.

[Gasparilla]

Mexico went from 33 million people in 1960 to about 110 million now, not including those who left for the United States. They need to reduce their population and stop thinking everyone can move to the US. We are overpopulated. Nothing to do with racism. The governments of the Bahamas and Dominican Republic deport Hatians all the time and Mexico deports illegals on their southern border.

[morbie5]

It was 20 million in the 1940s. Funny how they blame us for there poverty problems.

[jukesgrrl]

Do you blame them for your spelling problem, too? Just wondering.

[driven989]

...So spare me your Lou Dobbs statistics and your hidden racial bias. Unless you see what the reality is on the ground in these immigrant communities, you have no foundation on which to speak. I have seen it first hand - day after day - and can say these are good people who work for what they earn. I will take them over the lower income whites in the same neighborhood that frequent my friend's business with their foodstamps and their welfare money only looking to by alchohal (many, not all). These are able bodied people who refuse to work. That is who YOU should be outraged at, not the poor Latino immigrant (legal OR illegal) that works like a dog to support his/her family.



They are not taking our money or our resources. The lying politicians - Democrats and Republicans - and the fat-cat greedy corporations they work for are the ones doing that; and they are keeping Americans in a constant state of fear by playing up the "immigration" issue. And it's working...



Wake up America and stop your perpetual willful ingorance. Hard working immigrants are not screwing you. Think about who is...

[Warmglobe]

I am surprised that this is in English....he must of got it translated for him.

[driven989]

I am NOT Latino, but you ARE a racist.

[barriosbabe]

"alchohal "? Who is a drain on America?

[scrawf]

I have no doubt that they are wonderful people. But who exactly paid for the hospital care of that woman in the story? Who pays for the hospital care of illegals? I don't think that it is unfair to ask that.

[AKJM]

Are you saying poor American citizens are not hard workers.

Illegal immigrants offer their labor at wages that under cut lower earning Americans.

To use your analogy: Illegal immigrants are taking sloppy seconds.

[driven989]

I have a friend who owns a business in a low-income neighborhood that is predominately filled with Mexican (and other Latino) immigrants - legal and otherwise. Let me tell you from first hand experience...these people work hard - I mean HARD. You can see it when they come into my friend's business - they have the worn-out hands and the tired eyes of a "working man." Most of them, YES, most of them, do not receive any type of government assistance (welfare, etc - healthcare, on the other hand, is a human right in my opinion).

It's all very simple: they come to this country to find work. Why? To support their families - both here in the US and back in their native countries. Why? Because that is what real men do. They go through the misery of getting to this country knowing they will be exploited: overworked and underpaid. They know they will experience increasing racism and know they will be used as political pawns. But they endure all this to support their families - to survive. They completely understand their is no such thing as the "American dream," but they know they can make more money to feed their kids in this country than in their own. Like it or not, America has played the primary role in creating the miserable economic conditions in Latin America - mainly Central America - that help force people to head north in search of work.

(Continued below...)

[missviv]

driven989,

if i could meet you i'd shake your hand and buy you dinner. you are the most sane person i've read commenting on this issue thus far (although i admit, after all the racist and xenophobic regurgitations by other posters, i didn't have the stomach to read every reply).

i believe that anyone who feels so strongly against illegal immigrants and is so quick to dismiss them all as delinquents and social parasites, has no experience with immigrant communities at all. xenophobes have absolutely no idea how hard it is for undocumented immigrants to stay afloat in a country that brazenly humiliates and exploits them, but who do so to provide for their families. their racism blinds them towards seeing other hardworking human beings for what they are: HUMAN BEINGS.

for nearly 20years my parents held down 2-3 jobs each at a time. we never asked for government hand-outs, we always paid our taxes and we've always been law abiding people. if anything we appreciate being in this country far more than any of these anonymous cowards spewing hate speech via the comforts of their keyboard. the day we received our green cards, my parents cried - because of all the racism and back breaking work they've endured to EARN their legal status. if any of these xenophobes took the time to get to know an undocumented person as a human being, rather than as a target of hate and exploitation, they'd be singing a completely different story.

[randyjet]

So what if they work hard? That is NOT the question. The FACT is that they are breaking the LAW and depressing our wages! I lived on the border for a number of years and all my neighbors were Latino. They hated the illegals because they were depressing their wages. My neighbor was a LEGAL Mexican immigrant who was a skilled auto mechanic and he only earned $8/hr because most of his co-workers were working here illegally. He had done the right thing and waited in line to get his papers, and then all these line jumpers come in and kill his wages. Don't you think that would piss off YOU? The ONLY people who like illegals are the employers who make tons of money off of them. They are also the ones who contribute big bucks to the politicians who look out for them rather than Americans and LEGAL immigrants.

[driven989]

Thank you, and very well put yourself...

It just saddens me that so many Americans allow themselves to be manipulated into such a constant state of FEAR - fear of "terrorists," fear of "immigrants." The anger I have read on this thread is really just misplaced fear.

Perpetual Fear and apathy have created a willfully ingornant American society - and a willfully ignorant populace is the easiest to control. The few people/entities that have the real power in this country know this, and they use it to create division - because a divided population cannot pose a threat to their power.

People should know that most immigrants (legal or not) are just like "missviv's" family: hard-working, descent human beings trying to support their families and give their kids a better life...

[driven989]

Sorry, but somehow my two posts above got posted backwards. Just a point of clarification.

[oogabooga]

Imagine you're standing in line for hours at the most popular ride at Disneyland. Finally, it's gonna be your turn. Then about 100 people cut in front on you. And you say, "Hey, I've been waiting in this line for hours. You can't just cut in." And they all yell, "Yes we can." And then they get on the ride. How would you feel? Annoyed? Angry? Well, that's how the millions of people feel who apply legally at U.S. embassies around the world, who wait for years, who pay the $3,000 in fees and medical exams, who fill out tons of forms, who interview two or three times with the consular official, who prove they aren't criminals with local police records and FBI checks, who endure a protracted process - just to get a visa to legally live in the U.S. The illegal aliens are cutting to the front of the line and then flipping off everyone waiting behind them. That's the difference between legal and illegal immigration. Legal immigration yes, illegal immigration no.

[barriosbabe]

Is that from the Rush playbook? First of all, hard work in America is hardly a Disney fun ride. Second, the unfairness to legal immigrants really truly isn't relevant. So change the definition of legal!

[oogabooga]

Exactly the problem barriosbabe. You ignore the meaning of the line-cutting metaphor and you ridicule the people (like me) who endure the LEGAL immigration process. The pro-illegal immigration crowd makes a caricature of their cause by ridiculing legitimate arguments against it.

[hjo4]

I agree with the report, and its the truth. Ilegal immigration is a problem and burden to the American people.We cannot be the charity of the world. We have immigration laws that should be enforced.It's also an insult to compare LEGAL immigrants with those who chose to violate our immigraton laws.That's absurd and wrong.

[cramos]

It is not just in the border communities that this is occurring New Jersey State Hospitals run deficits into the hundreds of millions of dollars providing healthcare for illegal aliens.

Our Police departments and Courts are forced to provide bi lingual services to them

Our school systems are overwhelmed by the numbers of students.

Our prison systems are bursting from them.

Secure the Border.......Penalize the people who hire them!

[barriosbabe]

Assuming you're right (you're not) why not penalize those old fat bald greedy white men in Congress that don't change the law because it benefits big business? why fool around at the lower level of managers?

[Nobrun]

A good example of a crass misrepresentation of the facts. Is that you Lou Dobbs?

[LeftLeaner]

Sadly, these are the facts, and things arer.e not getting any bett

[Rumplestiltskin]

Why not provide links to disprove these facts?