The Media Research Center’s MRC Latino researcher Edgard Portela goes into heavy spin mode for Donald Trump in an Aug. 24 post:
Following his recent meeting with his new Hispanic Advisory Council, speculation that Donald Trump is changing his stance on immigration has continued to dominate the news coverage on the nation’s top Hispanic television networks.
However, both Univision and Telemundo have continued their usual pattern of concealing Trump’s intention – articulated by the candidate himself since shortly after launching his presidential campaign last year – that as President he wants to allow most of the current unauthorized immigrant population in the country (individuals and families who are gainfully employed and who are not convicted felons) to quickly return to and resume their lives in the U.S. following their deportation.
Instead, both Univision and Telemundo routinely omit from their reports and panel discussions this important piece of information for their viewers, and parrot Democrat talking points that only mention the deportation part of Trump’s stance on immigration.
It seems Portela is perfectly fine with the massive economic and personal disruption of deporting millions of people out of the country, since they will allegedly be allowed “to quickly return to and resume their lives in the U.S.” and that this provision somehow negates the newsworthiness of the deportation angle. Ironically, as proof Portela links to a RedState post from December that is, in fact, upset that Trump will apparently allow them to return. (Trump’s immigration policy has never been all that well defined, and it appears to be softening in the face of heightened scrutiny.)
Portela adds: “It’s also worth noting that for over a year now, the Trump campaign position paper on immigration only specifically mentions deportation for ‘criminal aliens’, a position consistent with his statement in July 2015 that the only people who should be worried are the ‘bad dudes.'”
Portela curiously declines to use in his post the preferred right-wing terminology for undocumented immigrants, “illegal aliens” — the MRC itself has dismissed “undocumented immigrant” as “liberal-preferred terminology” — presumably to paper over the fact that his fellow right-wingers believe that undocumented immigrants are by definition “illegal” and, thus, “criminal,” theoretically making them a Trump target for permanent deportation and conflicting with his apparent pledge to let some return.