Campaign Action
Here’s some fake news for Donald Trump to attack, courtesy of state-run media:
On Fox & Friends, Fox News’ Jillian Mele falsely claimed that sanctuary cities across the United States are allowing undocumented people to become naturalized American citizens. According to Mele, “these twenty-one cities [are] teaming up with the Naturalize NOW campaign to rush the process for illegals pouring over our borders." The claim, which originated in the conservative Washington Examiner and was also pushed on Breitbart.com, misrepresented the campaign, which “encourages eligible legal permanent residents to seek out” citizenship. According to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Statistics, there are 8.8 million legal permanent residents in the United States who are currently eligible for naturalization.
Of course, only lawful permanent residents are eligible for these kinds of naturalization programs, but you wouldn’t know that from two outlets mentioned above, which just happen to neglect mentioning this fact. As for Fox & Friends, the host doesn’t offer proof about how “Naturalize NOW” is fast-tracking citizenship for all these undocumented immigrants “pouring over our borders” (Fact check: our border is more secure than ever. Thanks, Obama), instead flashing the usual images of brown people getting arrested by ICE agents.
Donald Trump and others claim they can’t be nativist a-holes because they just love legal immigration and legal immigrants, but it’s clear from attempts to smear naturalization programs for lawful permanent residents that they hate them too.
The Senate’s 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill, passed with a bipartisan 68 votes, would have allowed undocumented immigrants to go to the back of the line for a 13-year path to citizenship after paying a fine, assessed taxes, passing a background check, and fulfilling several other requirements. But House Republicans, led by former Speaker John Boehner, refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.
The fact is that as of now, there’s extraordinarily few and complicated options for undocumented immigrants to legalize their status. Remember this the next time someone asks why undocumented immigrants who have been here for years and have U.S. citizen kids just don’t apply for legal status already. They’d be more than happy to, but there’s no line for them to stand in.
