Jorge Ramos, the Univision television news anchor named by Time Magazine as one of the nation's 25 most influential Hispanics, has become a fervent advocate of "comprehensive immigration reform" and the sweeping legalization it would offer to the nation's population of illegal immigrants. His news program reports almost every night on the fight for legalization. Those reports seldom give voice to those concerned about the negative effects that massive illegal immigration has on legal immigrants or on the country as a whole. Those who want to limit immigration or enforce immigration laws are routinely labeled as "anti-immigrant."
As he demonstrates in a column in today's edition of Mexico's respected Reforma newspaper, Ramos thinks the U.S. government should make no distinction between immigrants illegally in the U.S. and those who followed U.S. laws. He wants protection for all those who enter the country, legally or not. He calls on President Obama to put an immediate stop to the worksite raids that enforce U.S. immigration law by arresting illegals.
Writes the Mexico-born Ramos (the translation from Spanish is mine): "Barack Obama is the son of an immigrant from Kenya. The governor of Louisiana, Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal -- who gave the Republican response to Obama's speech to Congress -- is the son of immigrants from India. The United States looks increasingly like these two. And therefore, in honor of the generous tradition of the United States with the immigrants, Obama cannot turn his back to the foreigners who arrived after his father."
Ramos continues with the observation that "there is nothing more brutal than when a family is seprated by force." He calls on Obama to be "congruent" with the promises of his campaign, when he lamented the separation of families caused by the raids:
"The greatness of a country is measured not by its treatment of the richest, but by the way in which it cares for the most poor and weak. They are the children of the undocumented. And they expect just one thing: that they not be separated from their parents."