It’s a variation on the old joke. “An Arizona Republican walks into a Fox News studio. So, he says to the bartender newscaster…”
Mark Brnovich went on “Fox and Friends” on January 13 talking about Obama’s executive action on immigration, and in the course of the interview he said,
“I know in states like Arizona it’s estimated that 10 percent or more of the students in our public schools are here in the country illegally.”
Big number, 10 percent. One in ten students. The Republic put the assertion to the test in one of its Fact Checks and gave it No Stars: Unsupported. Most probably our attorney general, whose job description, I’m guessing, includes being factually accurate, mixed up the immigration status of children with the status of their parents.
For Arizona, the [Pew Research Center] report estimates children with at least one undocumented immigrant parent make up 11 percent of the public-school population.
According to the Republic, the progressive Urban Institute puts the number of undocumented students in Arizona at closer to 2.2 percent. The conservative anti-immigration group, Federation for American Immigration Reform, puts it at about 5 percent. If Brnovich’s number is twice what the mad dogs at FAIR say, that means he’s got it really, really wrong.
But, you know, he said it on Fox News, so it’s sure to become part of the legend repeated ad infinitum by the right. “On Fox News they said…” “Our attorney general said…” So it’s gotta be true.
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2015.
Fox news consistently makes up facts, rewrites history and blatantly lies to who ever is gullible enough to watch their product. The sad fact is that these viewers believe the spew that is being fed. Any wonder why bozo’s like Brnovich are in office.
An Attorney General that does not let facts get in his way is a
frightening thing.
So you think NBC let Brian Williams out of his contract so he could continue to lie?
Or was it blow up Chevy trucks?
How could TUSD ever figure out…and report how many students are here illegally?
Maybe the media could ask them?
Was that supposed to be a haiku, Rat T.?
/.facepalm
So it is supposed to be perfectly acceptable that illegal aliens have children that Arizona taxpayers have to foot the bill for because they’re here already and we must have compassion and charity for all human beings. Even 2.2 percent is too many.
Yes
“Logical Thinker” , Teachers must be ethical and do not ever ask children for their status. We teach people. Schools are not suppose to be political playgrounds and that doesn’t stop people like you from doing that. Children are children and I teach whomever walks in my door. If there is a problem with immigration it MUST NOT be dealt with at the door of the schools. That is for congress and our president and voters and since Republicans have not come up with a sane bill, lay it at their feet (and yours I might add). Sanity is not ‘deport them all’. If you don’t understand that, please do some real research(Fox News, nor Rush, nor Hannity, nor any extreme right site do not count as research at all).
BTW, Rat T, if Fox News let go of all of the people there who lied, they wouldn’t have anyone left!
Fox news is crap, but this is a distinction without a difference and an example of pointless nitpicking by the author. The fact is 10 percent of the students in our schools would not be there if it weren’t for illegal immigration. The oddity of birthright citizenship, practiced by the U.S. but virtually no other industrialized nation may change their legal status but the result is the same.
So from the point of view of those who having been defending Homeland Security since 1492, the ten percent figure should be more like 95%.
Republicans have no rational solutions to any problems facing America. Why voters keep electing them is simply amazing and depressing.
Brnovich is a few vowels short of an alphabet.
The headline should read, “This Is What Happens When Idiotic Arizona Voters Elect Even Bigger Idiots to Public Office.”
Sooner or later we’ll have to take responsibility for our cadre of idiot politicians, one way or another.
When Arizona elected officials go on national television they should be forced to proceed their remarks with a disclaimer. “I have abdicated responsible state government to right-wing extremists attempting to row their boat in a sea of sand without oars. I am not compelled to state facts just my own views and nothing more.”
One day Arizona will wake up and find a closed door to an entire generation of young people who have been cheated out of a quality education. The political forces controlling state government and the Legislature have destroyed education by withholding funds in the name of school choice.
Our future, our children, are saddled with diminished incomes and narrowed career opportunities. Under realized educational opportunities will lead to slow economic growth. Employment will be constricted, and the quality of life will be diminished.
Those few who are lucky enough to further their educations will leave our colleges saddled with crushing student debt forced to leave the state for better paying employment leaving behind a weak job market.
Unless Arizona turns around and develops aggressive jobs programs and rebuilds the education system from K-12-Community College-University the lack of funding dooms future job opportunity. School choice, vouchers, tax credits and Disneyland fantasies of dual and triple public education systems need to be dropped. Let’s work on one system of public education and concentrate on making it superior.
This is a personal narrative and sometimes I think what we experience is more important than what we read, especially in the area of illegal immigration. I worked in Vail, CO at Colorado Community COllege for 2 years(2001-2003). The businesses in this sky resort bring from Mexico and employ many illegals because they cannot find enough people to work during the sky season for very little money. Many lived in mobile homes with 20+ people in them. THey worked everywhere and one day in Walmart and noticed many employees did not speak English. I was standing by some people that were obviously there on vacation and some were complaining loudly, “At least they could learn to speak English” in a very condescending way. I walked away in a disgusted way because even though many did not understand English, the employees did understand the tone. Because I worked at the college, I knew that the ESL classes were constantly full. THese people were doing the best they could. I also worked in an ESL class(I am a reading specialist but they were short teachers in that area) and I enjoyed working with these students immensely. I vowed that I would never be cruel in ways I see many Americans were and still are because I witnessed how these people who came from poverty and still lived in poverty were being used by employers and treated by people in the U.S.
After returning to Tucson in 2003, I watched a special by Tom Brokaw on builders who use and appreciate illegals because they could not find workers who would work for what they could afford to pay. When I hear the lies spewed by politicians about the undocumented workers who know the truth about how many come to America, I want scream at the hypocrisy. (Remember John McCain was found to have undocumented workers on his property in 2007 doing his yard work?) Didn’t surprise me a bit. Believe me everyone who lived in Vail knew there were many undocumented workers and they did nothing because they were necessary for Vail’s economy.
So to me I will certainly teach these children who walk in the door. I do not know who is and who isn’t undocumented and I don’t care. I think the Dreamers deserve a chance because it is probable they came here this way. It happens all over America and many politicians feed the racism that exists here because they know it will give them votes. THey also don’t tell the truth about how valuable they are to our economy by working at jobs that no one else wants and it enables us to have many products and services cheaply. Yes I believe we have a problem and we need to work at finding sane solutions. We will only find them by starting with the truth . THey do not steal our jobs.
The experiences in Vail are repeated in small towns and cities across the country. It’s not just the wages and low pay that keeps US Citizens from the jobs, they are not going to live in horrible housing and living conditions for seasonal employment. Thank you Lord for the leading us from the days and ways of the depression era.
Right here in Arizona during the days of lettuce growing, tending the cotton fields
and other farm activities who do you think they bring in to fill those temporary jobs? Who do you think crawl in the strawberry fields of Oregon or the apple orchards of Washington, or follow the tractors in the potato planting of Idaho?
Vail, Colorado is no different than the tourist areas of Nevada or the motels along the California coast, who do you think they hire to clean, make the beds, and wash the dishes?
America is not just the United States, with all the waste “protecting the border” we could renew the “Good Neighbor Policy” of President Franklin Roosevelt and help build a better economic structure for all of the peoples of America. Native Americans, the poor in the large city slums, or the tenants in the rural areas forgotten and left behind the progress many of us enjoy.