Media reaction to a current political issue on immigration

Immigration issues have been hot in the media ever since the Obama administration proposed to change the immigration rules in the U.S. earlier this year. The current rule states that illegal immigrants need first to leave the country before they can request a waiver on the 3-10-year ban on coming back to the U.S. legally. The ban is placed based on how long the immigrants have lived illegally in the country. With the proposed rule, the children and spouses of legal U.S. citizens can request the government to make a decision on the waiver without them having to first leave the country. After the waiver has been given, they can then head back to their countries to apply for their visas. Associated Press, 2012()

The director of U.S. citizenship and immigration services, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated that this new rule would cut down the amount of time an illegal immigrant would spend out of the U.S. from months to just weeks or even days. "The purpose of the proposed rule is to minimize the extent to which bureaucratic delays separate Americans from their families for long periods of time." Associated Press, 2012()

This move by the Obama administration has been criticized by the Congressional Republican as a way of the Obama administration providing "backdoor amnesty" to illegal immigrants. The R-Texas representative, Lamar Seeligson Smith voiced his concerns on this issue and stated that the Obama administration was putting the interests of illegal immigrants ahead those of American citizens. Associated Press, 2012()

Political context of the issue

Willard Mitt Romney was born in the year 1947 on the 12th day of the month of March. He is a politician and business man in America. He was the Governor of Massachusetts from the year 2007 till 2007 when he was succeeded by Deval Patrick but is a candidate for reelection in 2012. He is vying on a republican ticket. Mitt Romney is the son of George and Lenore Romney. His father was a former governor of Michigan. Mitt was raised in Michigan in Bloomfield Hills and later on, he was a missionary of Mormon in France.

To regain his sit in 2012, Romney in one of his campaign speeches stated that he is pro-self-deportation. He pointed out that self-deportation would be a great strategy to help reduce the incidence and number of undocumented immigrants to the United States. He said this as his answer to a question that was posed by the political editor of 'The Tampa Bay Times', Adam Smith, who said that Mitt had not cleared declared where he stands on the issue of deportation and that he seemed confused on his stance regarding deportation Madison, 2012()

The question posed by Alan Smith was "Governor Romney, there is one thing I'm confused about. You say you don't want to go and round up people and deport them, but you also say that they would have to go back to their home countries and then apply for citizenship. So, if you don't deport them, how do you send them home?" Romney replied that "we're not going to round people up." He continued to elaborate that those who were undocumented immigrants and at the same time had financial difficulties should be given the choice to return to their home countries on their own will. "The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here, and so we're not going to round people up." Madison, 2012()

He also explained that "The way that we have in this society is to say, look, people who have come here legally would, under my plan, be given a transition period and the opportunity during that transition period to work here, but when that transition period was over, they would no longer have the documentation to allow them to work in this country. At that point, they can decide whether to remain or whether to return home and to apply for legal residency in the United States, get in line with everybody else. And I know people think but that's not fair to those that have come here illegally." Madison, 2012()

Alan Smith reacted to Romney's answer by stating that this is how the current system that is in place in America is. "If somebody doesn't feel they have the opportunity in America, they can go back any time they want to," Alan said. Romney responded to this by saying that together with his administration, he would ensure that the possibility of the illegal immigrants was nil which would lead them to have to find jobs elsewhere and thus they would have to result into self-deportation. Madison, 2012()

"We'd have a card that indicates who's here illegally. And if people are not able to have a card, and have through an E-Verify system determine that they are here illegally then they're going to find they can't get work here. And if people don't get work here, they're going to self-deport to a place where they can get work," Romney said. By so doing, the immigrants would result to 'getting in line back at home' and then they would come into the states legally once they "reached the front of the line." Madison, 2012()

Romney earlier in the discussion mentioned that he would support some legislation that allows certain young immigrants to gain citizenship through military service. "That's the same position that I have, and that is that I would not sign the DREAM Act as it currently exists, but I would sign the DREAM Act if it were focused on military service." He was echoing the words that Gingrich had said on his position on immigration. Madison, 2012()

Message portrayed

The media attempts to portray a message on what the stance of Mitt Romney is regarding the issue of immigration and illegal immigrants. The piece suggests that Mitt Romney can be branded as an anti-immigrant according to the stereotyping placed in the piece. The piece shows that Romney is clearly for the plan of self-deportation. It gives an unbiased view on what Romney stated to answer the question that was posed by the political editor of 'The Tampa Bay Times'.

The piece portrays the message objectively without any form of distortion caused by emotion or personal views. The message is passed based on what Romney had stated which is the observable phenomena in this case and is not biased in any way.

Effect on the public's perception

The message and how it has been covered in this piece may be thought to have a stereotyping effect on the public's perception of Mitt Romney. The message portrays Romney as an anti-immigrant and this can encourage his supporters and other voters as well to be prejudiced and to discriminate him based on this. Before the Florida primary, Mitt Romney was speculated not to gather enough votes since he was branded as an anti-immigrant yet when the results came in, it was found that a good majority of the Latinos had voted for Romney. Even Cuban voters backed him and there was an increase in the percentage of Cuban voters who backed him compared to his 2008 figures. Nearly 6 in every 10 Cubans voted for Romney Fox News Latino, 2012()