Immigration reform battle comes to West Michigan

Analysis:

This story was based upon a public hearing that was hosted by four Republican State lawmakers on immigration and border security. The media release that Rep. Agema sent out stated that he wanted to know “how illegal immigration impacts their community” in a negative way. The Channel 8 reporter frames the story as a debate over issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants even though the discussion was much broader than that. The hearing had 9 different invited speakers, all of which were in favor of more draconian measures against those entering the country without documentation, but the channel 8 story does not reflect this in its coverage.

After the opening comments by the reporter, viewers hear from a woman who is pro-immigration and then a man who is representing a group called 9/11 Families for a Secure America. What the reporter didn’t say was is the man from the 9/11 group was from Connecticut, nor did they provide any background on this person. The next speaker was an immigrant woman and the last perspective hear was from Rep. Agema. Agema makes several claims about what is at stake with this issue, but the reporter does not verify any of those claims, even though he made claims about terrorists coming to the US and undocumented immigrants taking jobs away from other people. People should ask themselves whether or not this story provided them with a clear sense of what the Republican Task Force was doing in Ottawa County that day and whether or not viewers are better informed about this particular issue.

Story:

WOOD TV Reporter – Just say the words immigration reform, illegal alien and undocumented worker, you got a debate. Today that debated centered around people in Michigan illegally or with out documentation getting a drivers license. Law enforcement seems to favor prohibiting people illegally from getting the document while those opposed the idea oppose local law enforcement also enforcing immigration.

Woman against proposed legislation – For one thing local law enforcement have enough to deal with in looking for real criminals with real criminal cases, so we don’t need to waste their time trying to enforce immigration laws and I have talked to a number of police officers and I don’t think that these guys here today really count.

WOOD TV Reporter – A different viewpoint comes from the father of a man who was killed on September 11. He says hijackers, here illegally, used drivers licenses to get airplanes that fateful morning.

Peter Gadiel – Drivers licenses were essential tools for the 9/11 killers. I will say with a great deal of confidence that had they not had drivers licenses that my son and 3000 other people would be alive today.

WOOD TV Reporter – So other like this woman who immigrated from Guatemala said it should be easy, not more difficult for people to get into the country.

Immigrant woman – See we need immigration reform and immigration reform has to have a reasonable way to let people to come to this country legally because we don’t want people to break the law. I didn’t break the law.

WOOD TV Reporter – But Republican lawmakers who held this meeting have other concerns like issuing drivers licenses to people here illegally and for area Representative Dave Agema, those concerns go deeper.

Rep. Agema – This issue is about three items; number one – security, because we don’t want any more illegals that are Hamas or Al Qaeda; number two it’s about jobs, some of the illegals do take jobs in factories, and then there are the costs.

WOOD TV Reporter – Some of those costs according to Agema, range from health care to delivering human services. As for the drivers license issue, Agema introduced a bill last month that would deny drivers licenses to anyone who is in the country illegally. So far no hearings have been held on the measure.