The second article I chose was “It’s a ‘Cat 5’ Immigration Crisis: Nielsen,” found on Fox News, which has conservative views. The work was done to inform the public on recent news regarding southern border control in the United States. This work was also done in an interview, but wasn’t a question and answer session, as well as recounting things that had been said previously. This article was created because there is a crisis at the southern border. The interview with Nielsen came after comments from ex-Obama administration officials publicly agreed with President Trump’s assessment that there is a crisis at the southern border. The work addresses President Trump’s actions in regard to the southern border crisis like threats to close the border and declaring a national emergency at the border in February. It also brings in research and facts that show there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone the prior week and more than 76,000 migrants detained in February alone. This is the highest number of migrants being detained in 12 years. The work also shows how Mark Morgan, who served as the head of Border Patrol in the Obama administration, is putting politics aside and agreeing there is a crisis at the border, as well as admitting the entire immigration system is overrun. The results of the work show that there is a crisis at the border and both political sides need to come together to develop a plan of action that both sides agree on to help combat the overrunning of the entire immigration system.
Tag: news bias
Article #1: Screening of Documentary
The article I chose was “Q&A: Alexandra Shiva, director of documentary on Syrian refugees, screening film at McDaniel,” from the Carroll County Times which is biased toward the left since it is a subcategory under the Baltimore Sun. This work was done to learn more about the film director, Alexandra Shiva, and her film that was screened at a local college. The specific purpose of the documentary they were discussing was to show the type of conditions and obstacles Syrian refugees go through, even when they come to America. Shiva displays how she chose to do the documentary because she thought pictures wouldn’t share the stories enough and do them justice. Shiva portrays how hard it is to pick one story they followed because they are all unique and eye opening. She even states in her interview, at the end, that she doesn’t know how these refugees do it, she can’t even imagine moving to another city in the United States. The article I looked at was done by a question and answer interview between a Carroll County Times employee and the film director, Alexandra Shiva. The documentary they were discussing was filmed and followed many Syrian refugees. The documentary finds that what these Syrian refugees go through is not easy, especially since they have to do things like try and learn a language, find a job, and learn how to parent their children in a completely different culture. Shiva also found that most of the refugees came here for their children to have a better life and there were a lot of refugees that wanted to go home, but couldn’t. She also found that the biggest hurdles for the refugees were language and cultural differences.
Immigration Article 1
This article posted on March 9, 2019, reports on the continued separations of families seeking asylum. It covers the basics of the family separation policy, it’s dissolution, and it’s continued existence despite the policy having been officially rescinded. The article lists the number of families separated, the growing numbers, the ramifications on both children and parents, and the political ramifications. This program worked largely without proper oversight and has been proven to be traumatic to the children. The article continues, giving detailed mini-chronicles of some of these family’s stories. The Customs and Border Protection officials claim all current separations are legal under current law, though in fact they are separating families for minor and often outdated crimes that have been resolved already. Many of the separations are done without any justification to the point where the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement has started trying to refuse to take the children separated by the policy. Records have been kept so poorly that there are many accounts of parents being told that no one knew where thier kids were, children have been separated from parents and sent all over the country with little to no proper records or oversight. Children from newborns to teens have been relocated, with little explanation and are scared, confused, and lost in a strange country with strange people and no adults that they trust. One young woman, age 18 was so distraught by the separation of herself and her two younger siblings from thier mother that she had to be hospitalized for threatening suicide. It has gotten so bad that the American Civil Liberties Union have had to intervene, demanding that the missing and children be found. This situation has not been resolved as of this article’s publishing.
Article Summary #2
The article I chose as an opposing view of the Washington Post article is from NPR. This article creates a simple and seemingly unbiased presentation of part of the recent budget plan proposed by the Trump administration. This plan included cuts to the United State’s immigration services, especially those based in other countries. This article explains that the plan could save millions of dollars, but could also slow down refugee processing, family reunifications, and military citizenship applications. The article then goes on to explain that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agency could possibly outsource their work to U.S. embassies and consulates abroad as their department is cut back and offices are closed. A policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute stated that the plan will likely lead to further processing strain for refugee applications.
This article utilized simple language that carried little to no emotional influence while presenting the facts of the topic. Much of the article consisted of direct quotes and exact descriptions of the actions of the analysts and agency heads involved. All information presented was relevant, well connected, and used in the correct context. There was no excessive use of adjectives, which can be seen in biased articles as a tool to sway a viewers opinion. This article seems to be a factual and trust worthy piece of news because of its attention to detail, straightforward language, and unbiased portrayal of a national concern.
Article:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/12/702807908/trump-administration-seeks-to-close-international-immigration-offices
Article Summary #1
The article I chose highlights the recent attempt of change in policy by the President on the amount of refugees allowed to enter the country by adjusting the cap to about 30,000, the lowest since the U.S.’s refugee program’s creation. The article states that the new policy is not to allow most refugees in to the United States, which is to be accomplished by cutting international humanitarian aid and cut back within the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The new budget for this department would be slashed from 3 billion to 320 million dollars. Aid for hunger and natural disaster relief also were set to be cut back. This budget will not make it through Congress.
This article is from the Washington Post, and uses a great deal of emotional words. For example, just the title “Trump is turning his back on refugees — and America’s tradition of compassion” uses the imagery of turning refugees away in a violent manner, and suggests that Trump is as well throwing away the United States’ history of care for other countries. Throughout the article particular words are used to enhance the emotions being evoked by the reader. For example, instead of using the term “budget cut” to explain the de-funding to the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the article explains that the plan will “squash the operations nearly to nothingness”. This is a much more emotionally involved statement that utilizes imagery and strong words to create sympathy for the de-funding. Overall, this article uses factual information about the happenings of the planned budget, but has an noticeably liberal bias in the language and explanation of the administration’s plan.
Article Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-turning-his-back-on-refugees–and-americas-tradition-of-compassion/2019/03/14/c2ae92e8-45d3-11e9-aaf8-4512a6fe3439_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c05b918ca0b9
Article Summary #1
The article, in a quick summary, states that during Trump’s presidency, he has given White Supremacists comfort to come out from behind masks and view immigrants as the new threat.
The article talks about a tweet President Donald Trump made after the attack in New Zealand where he call out “Fake News Media” for blaming him for the attack in New Zealand. The writer, Felicia Persuad, argues that it is Trump’s fault for what has happened stating that he has given White Supremacists courage to come out and attack immigrants since the start of his presidency in 2016. The man accused of the murder of 50 immigrants in a Christ-Church mosque wrote in his manifesto that Trump is “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” With Trump making comments about “building the wall,” and banning Muslims from entering, he is giving White Supremacists gas to the fire, giving them a reason to hate. The article compares the sudden growth of hate groups as a growing terror that should be compared to ISIS. In 2017, FBI records indicate 7,175 hate crimes were reported across the U.S. with 34 being specifically from white supremacist groups. That would be about 20 hate crimes a day, not to mention social media bullying and harassment (specifically racist comments) have increased drastically.
The writer attacks the Trump administration for how it’s been running things since its inauguration in 2016. She states that the hate groups are not small but large and must be hunted down and note overlooked as Trump as done so far.