In an article awash with emotion and devoid of any impartiality, The New York Times editorial board threw a temper tantrum over President Donald Trump’s announcement to end DACA.
“President Trump didn’t even have the guts to do the job himself” begins TheNYT article. “Instead, he hid in the shadows and sent his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to do the dirty work” referring to Sessions’ press conference detailing the illegality and incentives former President Barack Obama’s executive order created.
It was a harsh opening to an article that spared very little punches and made sweeping claims while using terminology no journalist ever should.
“Mr. Sessions, a longtime anti-immigrant hard-liner, was more than up to the task” TheNYT editorial board writes. However, opposing illegal immigration isn’t exactly “anti-immigration,” particularly if you’re the attorney general of the United States tasked with following the letter of the law.
In what TheNYT referred to as “a short, disingenuous speech,” Sessions called DACA unconstitutional and said it created a humanitarian crisis and denied job to Americans. He also claimed past failures to enforce immigration laws put our nation at risk.
“False, false, false and false” the editorial board retorted in a standalone sentence. TheNYT either didn’t care to do the research, or they just couldn’t bear to maintain journalistic standards, editorial or not.
Taken as a whole, the article was contradictory and disorganized.
“This wouldn’t be a concern if Congress had done its job and passed the Dream Act” lamented TheNYT, seemingly admitting that the legislature is responsible for enacting immigration laws. Oddly, the article claims that the only “bad thing” about DACA is that it is a “presidential memorandum,” but it is still “legally sound.”
“As for the policy’s legality, there’s no question that the president has the authority to set immigration-enforcement priorities” declared TheNYT.
Even liberal legal scholar Jonathan Turley agrees with the Trump administration that DACA was a major “circumvention of the legislative branch.” Particularly, the order violates the separation of powers, leaving one to wonder how TheNYT reached the conclusion that it was legal while tacitly admitting that it wasn’t.
“Indeed, media reports have indicated that many of the migrants are coming because they believe children will not be deported” reported the Christian Science Monitor regarding a massive surge of unaccompanied migrants on the southern border in June 2014. “[S]smugglers who bring Central Americans to the U.S. illegally may be telling people that children can take advantage of the program [DACA] and find work in the United States,” said Tania Chavez of La Union del Pueblo Entero told The Christian Science Monitor.
TheNYT, understandably, didn’t back up its declaration that this Sessions claim was “false.”
Instead they focused on the moral and legal justifications of the law without evidence with, of course, steady doses of attacking Trump. The editorial board said the administration is “shortsighted” and “playing to its base.” “[H]e doesn’t fully understand the scope of what he’s done” wrote TheNYT.
Heaping praise on Obama to “contrast” Trump, TheNYT linked to Obama’s Facebook post that called Trump’s decision “cruel” and quoted him calling DACA a policy that is “about basic decency.”
“The most effective critic of President Obama’s executive immigration amnesty is President Obama himself” wrote professor of law at Temple University, Jan C. Ting in the New York Times, before listing several times Obama himself claimed he doesn’t have the power to unilaterally change immigration law. The editorial board never considered Obama’s past statements or expressed concern over his use of executive power. Also never mentioned was that the order itself was meant to be temporary or “deferred” as the name implies.
Even TheNYT’s claim that dreamers “must have a nearly spotless record to be eligible in the first place” isn’t entirely true. Dreamers can have a criminal record barring serious offenses, though they “may still qualify for DACA if they show ‘exceptional circumstances,'” according to The Daily Caller.
TheNYT editorial board in their fit of anger abandoned the scrutiny healthy journalism demands. Perhaps their claim that Trump doesn’t fully understand what he just did is true, but those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
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