CNNMoney Toes Line for DREAM Act

Some stories are so biased and one-sided they must have come whole and unadulterated from deep inside the liberal media echo chamber. Take CNNMoney’s recent manipulative story [1]  pertaining to the trials and tribulations of illegal immigrants’ grown children, who are unable to fully participate in U.S. society because they lack legitimate identification.

More a pamphlet for the DREAM Act [2] than news report, the article detailed the problems such illegals face: companies are wary of hiring anyone with uncertain citizenship status. States like Arizona decided they couldn’t afford to pay tuition for illegal aliens, and family members sometimes get deported. Some of the more enterprising of these grown but still illegal immigrants become entrepreneurs as a result, but are still held back by their status.

Out of an estimated 2 million people in this predicament, CNNMoney profiled three who took the risk of deportation to be interviewed by author Jose Pagliery in an attempt to “change the tone of the immigration debate, one they see as bitter and xenophobic.”  

But if congress would just pass the DREAM Act, they’d get to stay in this bitter and xenophobic nation. The bill would have provided permanent residency to those who are between the ages of 12-35, having shown good moral character.  

The article didn’t mention the myriad reasonable objections to the Act, beginning with the fact that  

It would essentially reward breaking the law of the land. Instead, it quoted, apparently without irony, the mother of one of the entrepreneurs saying, “My daughter, with the little she's been able to study, has done so much with so little. If she had all the tools they give citizens, she'd be more than what she is now." 

Even as the article did its best to paint the immigrants as powerless victims, it couldn’t avoid a simple fact: illegal immigrants have benefitted greatly from many of the same rights that are granted to citizens. The profiled individuals admitted to having some financial success after receiving some higher level education. One was honest about his above-average salary as a landscaper but lamented his lack of career options. “‘Your whole life you're told you have to get an education and you'll be successful if you do,’ Prada said. ‘I finished and I couldn't use my degree.’” 

Left unsaid was how much better off these people are in the United States even with their illegal status than in their countries of origin.  

True to form, the article ended with an accusation against the U.S.: “‘I realized that we have to change this social notion that we're bad for the country and we're leeches,’ Prada said. ‘We're human. We have families. We contribute.”