As you read the lefty media – everything from the NYTimes to the Strib to the Minnesoros “Independent” – make a point of looking for the subtle bits of “dishonesty by omission” in the language.

I’ve noticed for a while now that, try as you may, when the leftymedia writes about “Immigration”, they never distinguish between legal immigration and illegal immigration – as if there’s no difference between a legally-naturalized citizen who’s followed the rules, and someone who snuck across the border.

Case in point – this deeply-misleading  piece by the Minnesoros “Independent”‘s Anna Pratt:

The New York-based political group Progressive States Network (PSN) has just released a report entitled, “The Anti-Immigration Movement That Failed,” which counters media hype around anti-immigration legislation, revealing that over the past few years, states have largely enacted various policies that embrace new immigrants.

Pratt gives a short laundry list of “progressive” pro-immigrant laws – without making the distinction between laws meant to help and work with legal immigrants versus illegal ones.

This is important, since later on she snarks:

Only in a handful of states that were already conservative-leaning were “significant anti-immigrant policies able to make headway in 2008… Everywhere else, states either stalled anti-immigrant bills or enacted positive policies to better integrate new immigrants,” the report reads.

The words “illegal” and “undocumented” don’t really pop up in the story.

Now, in the article she links, they do.  And what do they say?

Surprise!

Only 11% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted comprehensive punitive policies, while a significant majority of undocumented immigrants live in states with positive integrative or somewhat integrative policies.

In other words, “undocumented illegal immigrants go where the “progressives” make them welcome”.

Hm.  So conservatives are…correct?

Look for the leftymedia to try to spread more obfuscation on this issue as we get closer to the election and beyond.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 7:20 am and is filed under Campaign '08, Culture War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.