NBC’s Today Peddles Obama Talking Points, Avoids Using Term ‘Illegal’ When Discussing Crisis at Border

On Sunday, June 22, NBC’s Kristen Welker did her best to cover up the fact that the more than 170,000 illegal immigrants who have been captured crossing the Mexican border since October 2013 are actually illegally entering the United States.

In a 90 second report on Sunday's Today, it took Ms. Welker 85 seconds before she used the term “illegal” in her report with Today co-host Erica Hill describing the situation as merely a “surge of immigrants coming into this country.” The on-screen graphic that accompanied the report failed to use the term “illegal” instead choosing the politically correct term “migrants” to describe the situation. 

Welker began her report by noting how “The U.S. Border Patrol is expected to fly hundreds of Central American migrants from South Texas to California for processing” without mentioning that they were being processed for deportation. The NBC reporter continued to dance around the word “illegal immigrants” in her report by informing her audience:

Officials tell the A.P. on Monday two flights carrying more than 100 passengers each will head to San Diego and El Centre. That’s an attempt to ease the workload as at that busy Texas crossing. Now the passengers will be mostly families with young children. No unaccompanied minors. New additional flights will continue every three days. 

Welker furthered her use of White House talking points in discussing the crisis at the border and offered no criticism of their policy to deal with the flood of illegal immigrants entering into the country:

Administration officials have consistently said the surge in border crossing is due to an up tick in violence and poverty rates in that region. And then last week they also acknowledged there were rumors that were actually reaching Central America that U.S. border authorities are offering permits to parents traveling here with young children.

As the segment concluded, Welker finally informed her viewers that in fact the “surge of immigrants” were in fact illegally in this country: “The administration hopes that by increasing the number of migrants who are detained they’ll actually dissuade others from trying to enter the country illegally. On Friday, Vice President Biden traveled to Guatemala to convey that very message.” 

See relevant transcript below. 

NBC's Today 

June 22, 2014 

8:12 a.m. Eastern 

ERICA HILL: There are new developments this morning in the Obama administration’s plans to deal with the surge of immigrants coming into this country. Kristen Welker joins us from Washington with that story. Kristen good morning. 

KRISTEN WELKER: Erica, good morning. Here’s the very latest. The U.S. Border Patrol is expected to fly hundreds of Central American migrants from South Texas to California for processing, that’s according to the Associated Press. Now this move is a part of the government's latest response to the surge of Central Americans entering Texas’ Rio Grande V alley where the Border Patrol has arrested 174,000 people since October. Officials tell the A.P. on Monday two flights carrying more than 100 passengers each will head to San Diego and El Centre. That’s an attempt to ease the workload as at that busy Texas crossing. Now the passengers will be mostly families with young children. No unaccompanied minors. New additional flights will continue every three days. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will decide whether to keep people in custody or release them while they are in deportation proceedings. Administration officials have consistently said the surge in border crossing is due to an up tick in violence and poverty rates in that region. And then last week they also acknowledged there were rumors that were actually reaching Central America that U.S. border authorities are offering permits to parents traveling here with young children. So the administration hopes that by increasing the number of migrants who are detained they’ll actually dissuade others from trying to enter the country illegally. On Friday, Vice President Biden traveled to Guatemala to convey that very message. Erica, back to you.

HILL: Alright, Kristen thank you.