CNN Airs Anti-Immigrant Front Group’s ‘Pro-Labor’ Incendiary Ad
CNN Airs Anti-Immigrant Front Group’s ‘Pro-Labor’ Incendiary Ad
CNN is once again airing an incendiary ad by the an anti-immigrant front group, Coalition For The Future Of The American Worker, which warns that the US government is letting in 1.5 million foreign workers a year to take jobs from the 15 million unemployed Americans. Roy Beck, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA and principal spokesperson for the Coalition, called on supporters to discuss the ad at town hall meetings and declared the need for an “immigration suspension” bill to “champion workers.” A previous version of the ad aired earlier this year. Watch it:
To begin with, the supposedly labor-friendly “Coalition” is nothing more than a self-proclaimed “umbrella group” of the country’s leading anti-immigrant organizations which includes several designated hate groups: Californians for Population Stabilization, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, and the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). Several of these organizations have been classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the Center for Community Change New Community, FAIR and AICF have both received funding from the white supremacist and racial eugenic foundation, the Pioneer Fund.
The Coalition obviously has had little interaction with the nation’s two largest labor federations which are calling for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to legalization for undocumented workers and recommend the creation of an independent commission to assess and determine future levels of immigration. The local AFL-CIO in Detroit — where so many American autoworkers have been laid off — recently adopted a resolution vigorously supporting the labor federations’ immigration principles.
How the Coalition arrives at the notion that the US is even accepting 1.5 million “new” foreign workers is baffling. A few months ago, when NumbersUSA trumpeted the data (then estimated at 1.6 million immigrant workers), Walter Ewing of the Immigration Policy Center picked the far-fetched estimate apart. According to Ewing, the estimate is “so full of holes as to be virtually meaningless” and consists of two broken parts: an “extravagantly inflated estimate” of 744,000 “new” Green Card holders and “the unverifiable assertion” that the US is letting in another 913,000 non-permanent foreign workers. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statistics clearly indicate that the majority of “new” Green Card holders are not actually new immigrants, but rather students, refugees and temporary workers who have applied for an “adjustment of status” while already in the US. As for the second number, NumbersUSA doesn’t clearly define it and also fails to provide its source. All in all, legal avenues for foreigners wanting to work in the US are actually extremely restricted and green card numbers are tightly capped and limited to certain categories of persons.
This past election season, the Coalition sponsored a series of inflammatory ads that were blasted as “borderline racist” and pulled off their air by one Iowa station. While CNN refuses to air an ad criticizing the insurance industry which is actually backed by labor, the “Coalition” of anti-immigrant labor-friendly posers has its misleading ad placed on regular rotation.
9 Responses to “CNN Airs Anti-Immigrant Front Group’s ‘Pro-Labor’ Incendiary Ad”
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What utter nonsense…shame on CNN for showing a double-standard in their advertising policies. Personally, I think political adverts in general have no place on a news station – even one’s I agree with.
That being said, this ad is maddening precisely because it plays to the base fears of Americans, without any basis in fact. Great job breaking it’s ridiculous claim open, I just hope that most Americans can see through the thin veil of lies to the dirty core of discrimination that defines the anti-immigration perspective.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:07 amCNN is showing it’s true nativist colors by running this ad, but refusing to run an add criticizing Lou Dobbs:
http://dobbsconspiracy.com/
August 12th, 2009 at 12:21 pmImmigration debate hasn’t even begun yet in Congress and they are already coming out with hateful rhetoric. I just hope that reason will dominate in the end…As for CNN, so much for the “The World’s Most Trusted Name in News”
August 12th, 2009 at 2:17 pmToo bad, the ad is all heat and no light. It’s time that our southern neighbors in Mexico were viewed as solutions not problems. They would be if it weren’t for racism, which is so sad. The U.S. started the whole U.S.-Mexico problem back in 1848 when the white supremacists who ran it took half their territory and left them with a sawed-off country doomed to eternal subsistence agriculture, mindless of the future. Now, 160 years later, no wonder the chickens are coming home to roost. It’s time white supremacy was declared kaput by the Congress, by officially inviting the entire Mexican people to dissolve their ever-corrupt fatcat-controlled govt. and join the U.S. as the “51st state” (10+ states) as equal citizens, giving the U.S. 760K sq. mi. of new territory plus 5.8K mi. of new coastline, allowing the border to come down and free 2-way migration to equalize development and opportunities. Tell me that millions of “gringos” won’t flick to that yummy coastline and set up English-speaking cities. Click the url to read my well-thought out proposal, which all Americans should unite behind to finally heal all wounds and grudges and make the bigger better U.S. a model for the world. So what if most of the new citizens don’t speaka da English? Millions of Euro immigrants were allowed through Ellis Island who couldn’t speak it, and they did okay, didn’t they? Let economics determine who speaks what, not govts. Let’s just learn to get along and work together sans racism and xenophobia, the world is watching.
August 12th, 2009 at 9:16 pmLove the ad! Dead on. Why is the truth so offensive to criminals and Mexicans?
My parents waited in line and came to America legally. Why should we tolerate cheaters???
August 12th, 2009 at 11:52 pmCan the viewers of CNN be so uncritical? Yes. Can they really be liberals? Obvioulsy not. The company is clearly anti-Hispanic and very conservative despite its alleged concerns for working class people. These hate stories could not run without the consent and support of the CNN hierarchy. All broadcasters have editorial policies. It is clear that the policy of CNNs editorial board and directorate is to support left wing fascism.
John Beach, Jr.,
August 13th, 2009 at 9:52 amPedro: identify yourself. Incisive satirist or simpleton bigot?
August 13th, 2009 at 10:11 amA person of simple intelligence would ask… why when so many Americans are out of work, would our government continue to bring in foreign workers?
August 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pmThis has nothing to do with being anti-immigrant or hateful, it is a simple and thoughtful question?
Why is this happening?
Because Washington elected officials are in the back pockets of big business who reap huge profits from cheap labor, and foreign workers will work for less, and avail themselves to social services to make up the difference.
While you my moronic friends who claim this is an anti-immigrant are paying the benefits package for the cheap labor.
No wonder this country is in so much economic turmoil! You can’t see the forest for the trees!
Without any restraints ICE needs an army of interior inspectors to move into San Francisco and Los Angeles and every other–SANCTUARY STATE AND CITY. Begin lightening raids on predatory businesses and apprehending all illegal immigrants in the workplace. NO WRIST SLAPS, as business owners be severely fined, asset confiscation and go to jail. All illegal immigrant criminals should be detained and held for deportation. Anybody caught returning should receive a mandatory prison sentence of ten years. The 1986 immigration enforcement bill is not broken, but was never enforced. The law from the beginning was corrupted and fraudulently used. Enactment had provisions to go after pariah businesses and has never been implemented to the full extent of the law. Learn the naked truth, not lies at NUMBERSUSA Call your Senator and Representative at 202-224-3121. SAY NO TO AMNESTY. YES TO E-VERIFY TO REMOVE ILLEGALS FROM BUSINESSES. ICE IS WAITING FOR YOU TO CONTACT THEM ON ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:01 pm