Nina Bernstein of the New York Times

The first time I read a Nina Bernstein article, back in 2004, I thought it was from the CPUSA. I was genuinely surprised to later find out that she's a reporter for the New York Times, mostly covering immigration matters.

Mickey Kaus called her the "the most tendentious and biased reporter on the paper". She specializes in presenting heart-warming portraits of poor, oppressed illegal aliens who are happy, cheerful workers until they're viciously forced into hiding or caught up in an immigration raid. While she does occasionally use legally correct phrases such as "illegal aliens", she more frequently uses misleading euphemisms: "longtime immigrant workers who cannot prove that they are working legally", "immigrants who cannot prove that they are here legally", "newcomers", or just plain "immigrants."

She also used as a quote source someone who's an immigration lawyer and who testified to Congress on behalf of the American Immigration Lawyers Association without revealing those facts. Her 02/18/05 piece "License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked" took nine paragraphs to disclose that she was talking about illegal aliens.

At the last link, she discussed the tribulations of those who use someone else's social security number without even considering the victims of identity theft.

She's repeatedly advocated to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens, nearly oblivious to the possibility that terrorists would obtain such licenses. See also this and this.

Last modified Jun 15, 2009
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Hillman Foundation awards: illegal immigration-supporting film, Nina Bernstein, questionable Marcy Wheeler/FDL report - 5/13/2009

... illegal immigration supporter Nina Bernstein for the New York Times article "Deaths in Immigrant Detention". The judges were: Rose Marie Arce (CNN producer), photographer Susan Meiselas, Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker (pictured right), Harold Meyerson of TAPPED, and Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation. [1] emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/18/ khalid-sheikh-mohammed-was-waterboard...

Nina Bernstein, New York Times on immigration and mental illness - 5/04/2009

Nina Bernstein of the New York Times offers "Mentally Ill and in Immigration Limbo" (link). While much of the NYT's immigration coverage verges on the manic, in this case the mentally ill person is an illegal alien from China who's caught in a Kafkaesque maze of rules and regulations. It's certainly a tragic story and one that might be fixed by relatively minor changes in ...

DHS fugitive teams mostly picked up non-fugitives (why is Nina Bernstein telling us this? MPI, Wishnie) - 2/03/2009

Nina Bernstein of the New York Times (a paper part-owned by a Mexican billionaire) offers "Despite Vow, Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted" (link). In a way, it's a two part story. In the first part, there's the story itself, with the not-so-news news is that the targets of fugitive raids by the Department of Homeland Security shifted from dangerous criminals into whatever illeg...

Nina Bernstein /NYT agitates against immigrant detention centers - 12/27/2008

Nina Bernstein of the New York Times offers "Leaning on Jail, City of Immigrants Fills Cells With Its Own" (link), a six-screen, page-one, nine-months-in-the-making attempt by the NYT to push for an end to immigrant detention and for an amnesty for illegal aliens. The Donald W Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island - privately-operated - was supposed to revitalize the t...

Illegal immigration, ethnic power, idiocy, Nina Bernstein, Toys R Us - 1/06/2007

... on such a trivial matter, but: Nina Bernstein of the New York Times is in a slightly more reportarial mood with "First-Baby Sweepstakes Fuels Immigration Debate". It seems that Toys R Us - specifically their Babies R Us subsidiary - sponsors a "1st Baby of the Year Sweepstakes", and this year there were three possibilities: 1.

Nina Bernstein/NYT: Immigration enforcement equals fear - 12/24/2006

Our old favorite Nina Bernstein of the New York Times offers "Immigrants Go From Farms to Jails, and a Climate of Fear Settles In". She spends two screens painting a picture of upstate New York dairy farmers and their illegal alien employees living in a state of fear. The poor dear farmers are afraid one of their enemies is going to drop a dime on them to ICE.

Michael Bloomberg: possible illegal alien taxi drivers isn't dangerous - 10/24/2006

Michael Bloomberg has yet again let his outright support for illegal immigration interfere with his job of protecting New Yorkers.

Nina Bernstein: illegal immigration opponents are meanies - 6/26/2006

The New York Times' Nina Bernstein - a frequent author of pro-illegal immigration propaganda - is back with the three-screener "On Lucille Avenue, the Immigration Debate". It tells the story of illegal immigration opponent Patrick Nicolosi, who's portrayed as a busy-body who complains to the local authorities about local illegal aliens and who's generally disliked by his n...

Hats off to the New York Immigration Coalition - 2/26/2005

The New York DMV is trying to prevent illegal aliens from getting New York driver's licenses. If you've been reading the New York Times or the New York Daily News or press releases from various organizations, you might have been confused into thinking that they're trying to prevent all immigrants from getting licenses, but that's not true. For instance, the far-left New York Im...

"License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked" - 2/18/2005

The NYT's Nina Bernstein is back with another misleading advocacy piece masquerading as a "news" report. From "License Denials for Immigrants Are Blocked": A judge ordered yesterday that the state stop taking away the driver's licenses of immigrants in New York who do not have Social Security cards, saying that the Department of Motor Vehicles is not authorized to en...

Get out your hankies: Nina Bernstein has another article - 2/17/2005

Nina Bernstein - the NYT's answer to Sally Struthers - offers us "Caught Between Parents and the Law". Apparently the barrage of letters to Daniel Okrent have had an effect, because none of the usual euphemisms or outright lies jumped out at me. Nevertheless, I keep getting the feeling that, like other immigration-related sob stories - this story somehow found its way into the NYT w...

What the NYT isn't telling you (Part 1 of an infinite series) - 1/17/2005

... Licenses in ID Crackdown" by Nina Bernstein.

Nina Bernstein: Old Skool NYT - 9/26/2004

Nina Bernstein, the NYT's immigration reporter, is truly "Old Skool" NYT. As in: "Meteor to hit Earth; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit." Her latest piece is "New York Considers One-Year Driving Permits for Immigrants". From the piece, we learn the following "facts": - "an immigrant without legal status" is a cute euphemism for the legally-accur...

"License Crackdown Stirs Sharp Debate at Hearing" - 8/20/2004

Since this is a NYT report, the subtextual subtitle appears to be: "Working woman from Westchester County, immigrant workers hardest hit": [At the meeting] Raymond P.

"Immigrants Face Loss of Licenses in ID Crackdown" - 8/18/2004

Oh no. Immigrants are being subjected to some form of crackdown? Let's read this NYT article: Legislatures across the country have been wrestling publicly with a hot-button issue: whether to make it harder or easier for illegal immigrants to be licensed as drivers.

PIIPP spotted in NYT - 8/14/2004

... spotted in the NYT. The author is Nina Bernstein, and the article is entitled "From Immigrants, Stories Of Scrutiny, and Struggle": As a Muslim immigrant growing up in New York, Navila Ali, 20, felt safe and almost American until Sept.

Independent, in-depth coverage of immigration, politics, and media bias since 2002. Also: multiculturalism, Los Angeles, California, privacy, and occasionally celebrities and wacky humor...


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