In its headline, a seemingly shocked CBS News reported, “Kobach links migrant caravan and Kansas policies in governor’s race.”
This would seem to be a natural link. The opening sentence of the CBS article suggests as much, “Republican Kris Kobach raised a migrant caravan moving through Mexico as an issue in his campaign for Kansas governor, suggesting that lax state immigration policies are helping to lure them north.”
The seeming fairness comes to a quick end. CBS reports Kobach’s contention that Kansas provides $377 million a year in welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, but CBS qualifies that by saying this is “a disputed claim.”
The claim was disputed by Associated Press reporter John Hanna in a September 14 article headlined, “Kobach aims to drive out migrants living in Kansas illegally.”
As the Sentinel reported at the time, the Hanna article could serve some future generation of students–well, at least, at Hillsdale–as a tutorial on how to slant the news.
The body of the AP article was as as journalistically corrupt as the headline. Hanna did not report the news. He used his news platform to debate Kobach without Kobach being able to respond.
Hanna wrote, for instance, “Kobach has falsely described Kansas as the ‘sanctuary state of the Midwest.’” Falsely? That is pure editorial. If there was another state in the Midwest more lenient Hanna should have cited it.
Hanna took great issue with Kobach’s claim that illegal immigrants cost Kansas $377 million a year. In quibbling about the estimated costs, he wrote, “In short, much of the spending is for services a state can’t avoid unless immigrants are deported or leave voluntarily.” Yes, exactly!
Wrote Hanna with comparable illogic, “Almost half of the total costs the study cites are for public schooling for immigrant children. But a 1982 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court prohibits states from denying those children an education.” Why the “But”? If those poor children had been driven out of Kansas, the state would not have to pay for their education.
Hanna concluded his article with the ultimate liberal bait-and-switch, “Studies by the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2013 and the University of Kansas in 2014 concluded that immigrants benefit the Kansas economy and pay for government services they use.” That is all well and good, but the subject is illegal immigrants, not “immigrants.”
As CBS reports, Democratic nominee Laura Kelly and independent candidate Greg Orman used the same bait and switch. Not surprisingly, CBS gave Kelly the last word, “So much of our economy, whether you’re talking about here in the southwest or across the state, depends upon quality immigrant labor.” And that “quality” has exactly what to do with the “caravan”?
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