If I were an illegal alien and wanted to wrap a
MainStream Media reporter around my little finger, I would
say two things:
Virtually anyone in the US illegally can make the first
statement, misleading though it is. Technically, any alien who
sets foot on American soil and makes a
residency application can claim that he is on the way to
legal status, even though he does not have a snowball’s chance
in hell of being approved.
Applying is, after all, a step in the "process".
As for the GED test, that’s an easy sell to reporters, too.
The fact that the alien in many cases has had only a couple of
years of primary school education and may be illiterate in his
own language should be a tip-off to the reporter that a GED is
well out of reach, even if
taken in Spanish.
From my personal experience teaching a GED preparation course
for the
Lodi Unified School District, I can confirm that passing the
test is a stretch for anyone who does not have either recent
schooling or a basic educational foundation.
In fact, my guess is that only about 50 percent of 2007
California high school graduates
could pass the GED, which has recently made more difficult.
Recently Honduran alien Yori Barahona made the two
preposterous claims—"in the process" and "plans to
take the GED test"—to the completely-duped New York Times
reporter Alexis Rehrmann.
Apparently moved by Barahona’s deceptions, Rehrmann included
her as one of the Times’ annual Christmas "neediest
cases". This maddening series, which began in 1912 (read the
2007 versions
here) and appears every December, details the plights of a
disproportionate number of illegal immigrants in order to
generate donations on their behalf.[Once
Pregnant and Penniless, Now Leading a Household, By
Alexis Rehrmann, New York Times, December 29, 2008]
Here, in a nutshell, is illegal alien Barahona’s true
situation, as viewed through my well-trained eyes:
- Despite the story’s title, she was not
"once pregnant" but "twice
pregnant" both times without the benefit of
marriage. Barahona, 26, has two children.
- Barahona came to the US in 2000 (!)
but speaks no English.
- She has been abused, homeless and
slept in train station or in a shelter and is often
unemployed but occasionally earns the princely sum of $7.25
an hour.
- The New York City Housing Authority
subsidizes her rent for a one-bedroom Bronx apartment.
Each month, Barahona receives $215 from public assistance
and $85 in
food stamps. Both amounts will increase soon to cover
her recently-born infant.
- Barahona claims, "ruefully,"
according to the reporter, "not to have done well in
picking men."
There’s an idea for you—walk around your neighborhood, knock
on doors and ask for a handout claiming that you haven’t done
well with the opposite sex and that your failures have put you
in a bit of a bind financially. See how far you get!
My conclusion about Barahona is quite different from
Rehrmann’s.
Barahona is an illiterate baby machine and welfare dependent
leech who sleeps around and brings no job skills or anything
else to the party.
Barahona is a needy case, all right—in need of being
deported.
The NYT, and other MSM sources, are great on charity
for aliens. In 2003, I wrote about Times reporter
Judy Tong, duped by Francisco Ortigoza who told her that: "he
entered the country legally."
Unlike "in the process" and "plan to study,"
not every illegal resident can make this claim.
But, like the other falsehoods, it is incomplete: one can
enter legally on a visa, but then not return home, thus
becoming an alien and, in my book, a candidate (like Barahona)
for deportation, not assistance.
At play in the Times neediest cases appeal are two
gigantic ironies.
-
Irony #1: for a newspaper that devotes so
many stories and editorials to pushing hard for more
immigration, the cases detail all of the downsides of open
borders.
The Times tells tales of drug abuse, drunkenness,
heavy reliance on public assistance, immoral behavior, welfare
fraud and generally bad choice-making... all arguments
VDARE.COM has made as reasons immigration should be severely
restricted.
Yet the Times turns around to suggest that you should
financially reward not only the aliens’ illegal entry into the
U.S. but then, through your donations, their very bad behavior
once they got here.
And never mind, I guess, that, if you are so naïve as to
contribute, you are in fact subsidizing illegal immigrants
twice: once through your taxes that fund the social services the
aliens depend on; and again through your cash out-of-pocket
gift.
For a comprehensive and revealing look at the 100-year
evolution of the NYT’s’ neediest cases, and how it went
from a plea for the deserving poor to the undeserving, read
Heather Mac Donald’s piece. [Behind
the Hundred Neediest Cases, By Heather Mac Donald,
City Journal, Spring, 1997]
-
Irony #2: There are so many truly compelling
hardship stories are out there that do deserve our
compassion.
To name just one example, nearly
200,000 U.S. veterans are homeless—about 25 percent of the
total homeless population. About 1,500 fought in the current
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. [Study
Finds That Veterans Are a Quarter of the Homeless, By
Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press, November 8, 2007]
Curiously, the NYT wrote a story about homelessness
among veterans but does not see their plight as worthy enough to
add to its “Neediest Cases”. [Surge
Seen In Number Of Homeless Veterans, By Erik Eckholm,
New York Times, November 8, 2007]
The NYT
position on immigration is well known to all. But I’m
always amazed—even though, at this point, I probably should not
be—at how it contradicts itself.
On the one hand the NYT tells us through its endless
editorial and slanted stories that immigrants are productive
workers, essential for our economy and revitalizing our cities.
Ergo, we need more of them.
On the other hand the very same NYT says that
immigrants are down and out because of various addictions and
calls for us to all pitch in to help them get back on their
feet.
Which is it? Even the NYT would have to admit that it
can’t have it both ways.
The “neediest cases” prove that VDARE.COM and not the
Times is on the right side of the national question
argument.
Joe Guzzardi [e-mail
him] is the Editor of VDARE.COM Letters to the Editor.
In addition, he is an English teacher at the Lodi Adult School and has
been writing
a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive
to
VDARE.COM.
Who Is Truly The Neediest? Don’t Ask The
New York Times!