Thursday, April 24, 2014

Misrepresenting Obama's Immigration Policy

White House advisor Cecilia Munoz is falsely claiming that President Obama cannot stop the deportations decimating immigrant communities — even though we all know that President Obama has the power to stem the flood of deportations his Administration has unleashed on immigrant communities.


Munoz was once a widely respected advocate for Latino communities at National Council of La Raza. Now she is trading on her credibility in Latino communities and access to Latino media to disingenuously minimize expectations about what the Obama administration can do to provide relief for the millions living in fear of deportation.

This isn't the first time Munoz has done this, but it ought to be the last. By holding her accountable, you can help create a powerful story in the media that reduces Munoz' credibility — and therefore the damage she's able to do by misrepresenting Obama's immigration policy.

In a recent interview, Munoz said, "What people are asking is that the president simply say he’s not going to enforce the law with respect to 8 million — 10 million people, which is more than your executive authority allows you to do."

But that's exactly what the President's authority allows him to do, a fact that even the New York Times editorial board acknowledges.

Munoz has used her reputation to promote falsehoods before. Back in 2011, more than 10,000 Presente members asked Munoz to set the record straight after she misrepresented the consequences of the Secure Communities program (S-Comm) during a PBS interview.

This most recent incident comes in the weeks after Presente launched the Obama Legacy Project, a campaign aimed at telling the truth about Obama's immigration legacy. Munoz questions whether it's fair to call Obama "Deporter-in-Chief," even as mainstream politicians and Latino political organizations have taken up the charge. But the proof is a matter of public record: nearly 2 million people deported, countless families separated, and entire communities living in fear of the next immigration raid.

Thanks and ¡adelante!
Arturo, Mariana, Erick, Erica, Refugio, Luis and the rest of the Presente.org team

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