Cecilia Munoz misleads about DREAM Act (White House "Open for Questions")

The half-hour video below features Cecilia Munoz of the Barack Obama administration promoting the anti-American DREAM Act in an online chat yesterday. Some of the ways she misled viewers are discussed below.

Munoz was formerly with the National Council of La Raza and there's more about her at her name's link. Nowadays she's the "Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs" and in the chat she fielded a series of questions from her side and bad questions from those on the other side; all of the latter she was able to deflect with ease. Since the questions were pre-screened it probably would have been pointless to try to ask something she'd have trouble with, but readers are urged to go to public appearances by her and other administration officials and really press them on the downsides of the policies.

Near the beginning of the chat, she makes the ludicrous claim that "we don't see a downside to the DREAM Act." Munoz puts her ethnicity before the national interest, so she probably doesn't think that the many downsides of the bill - such as taking educations away from U.S. citizens - are that great.

Later she warns against "depriving ourseleves of the talents of these extraordinary people". First, the DREAM Act has no meaningful academic limits: it's not just limited to extraordinary students. Certainly, some of those who'd be covered by the bill have shown themselves quite adept at gaining publicity (aided by immigration lawyers and the media) , but that doesn't make them extraordinary.

And, by taking advantage of the talents of those who'd be covered by the DREAM Act, we'd be depriving their home countries of those talents. Munoz is supporting the further braindraining of Third World countries.

Then, she makes another ludicrous claim: "you can't make the argument that the DA will act as some sort of magnet for people to come here in the future". Of course, one can easily make that argument. The DREAM Act would send yet another message to potential illegal aliens that powerful forces inside the U.S. aren't serious about immigration enforcement. It will send the message that all they need to do is come here illegally with their children and, as long as there's a sympathetic administration and with enough pressure their kids will be eligible for an amnesty. Those who'll be covered by the DREAM Act will confer even more political power on the far-left and racial power groups, and those groups will push for "DREAM Act 2". And, since the DREAM Act only covers those who've been here for at least five years, there's already a new population of illegal alien students who'll follow in the footsteps of the current activists.

Continuing her deception, Munoz repeatedly uses the system is broken canard and around the 7:00 minute mark she engages in the deportations false choice. She follows that with another false choice, pretending that the only alternative to the DREAM Act is for illegal alien students to remain in the U.S. Another alternative - one that would be far better policy - would be to repatriate those covered by the DREAM Act. That way they can help build up their own countries, and at the same time they'll be kept from taking college educations away from U.S. citizens.

Then she says the following:

"As a member of the White House staff I can't ask anyone to reach out to Congress or to lobby the Congress, so I won't. But, I will say that there is a lot of misunderstanding out there about what the DREAM Act is about, and there are a lot of organizations that are engaged in telling the story of DREAM Act students. Because, when you're actually talking about specific individuals with names and histories and faces it's really hard to say some of the kind of ugly stuff that gets said about passing these kind of proposals."

Making up your own joke about the first sentence is left as an exercise. The more important point is that, rather than being willing to debate the huge and obvious downsides of her policy, she's promoting the use of propaganda designed to pull heart strings via PIIPP articles (see the link).

Then, when she's asked how the DREAM Act will be funded, all she can think of are processing costs. She fails to either understand or reveal the huge cost to Americans as some of them are unable to attend college, or the huge cost to Americans as some states decide to give in-state tuition to the illegal aliens covered by the DREAM Act. There are also huge hidden costs: braindraining countries like Mexico makes that country even more dysfunctional, and unless we're able to build a very tall wall completely across our southern border the last thing we want is for them to be even more dysfunctional.

Once again I urge everyone to organize efforts to go to public appearances by Munoz and other administration officials and really press them on the points above and on the DREAM Act page. A video of an administration official being discredited over this issue would have a very meaningful impact on not just this issue but politics in general.

The video is below and is also available at peekurl.com/vzqcpca

Open for Questions: The DREAM Act with Cecilia Munoz