One of the current top stories on Fox News' Latino site is 'I Was Undocumented on "Sesame Street"' [1], an attempt to promote illegal immigration that also promotes a culture of illegality. It's a first-person tale by Carlo Alban, who worked for the character "Mr. Hooper" on that show from 1993 to 1998. He had gotten the acting job using fake documents, and the article is full of tales of abusing the U.S. system in illegal ways:

My family had come from Ecuador when I was seven and my older brother Angelo was nine. We came on a tourist visa, and the moment my parents had gotten it, we knew we were not coming back. They sold all our furniture before we left.

...So I did a couple of plays, and in the beginning, “Sesame Street” was just another audition... Then, I was offered a regular role. I wasn’t about to turn that down. We had counterfeit green cards, but we never showed the actual card. We turned in photocopies, crossed our fingers, and hoped it worked. And this time it did.

...(In fact, we tried to get (drivers licenses). My father heard of a guy that was selling Puerto Rican birth certificates, and we bought two. My brother’s worked, and he was able to drive. Mine didn’t, and the people at the DMV took it away and told me if I wanted it back, I’d have to go pick it up at the state’s central office. I didn’t, of course.)

...One year, I was supposed to be part of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For that, you get hired by Macy’s, so again I had to give a social security number and show paperwork. I was scared and wanted my father to change a number on the Xerox. And he didn’t, because he didn’t know how to. I was so angry, we got into a physical altercation.

In the long run, the culture of illegality expressed in the article is very corrosive to U.S. society. We're probably never going to be as corrupt as Mexico or other third world countries, but allowing millions of people who think it's OK to use fake documents isn't helping. Kids who think it's OK to use fake documents might grow up to be those who try to bribe local officials and the like. And, Fox News isn't helping by promoting stories like this.

It's also not like there's a shortage of U.S. child actors; in addition to taking a Sesame Street role from a citizen or legal resident, he also took other resources from citizens or legal residents:

One day, we went to visit our cousins, and they were on their way to try-outs for a community theater production of “Oliver!” It was through a program put on by the city, to get disadvantaged kids off the street.

And, there's also an example of the network effect, such as might happen after some form of amnesty:

My mother had a sister living legally in the United States, and my parents planned to have her sponsor us for residency. Soon after landing in New York, my parents saw a lawyer. But we were told the process would take four or five years.

Please tweet @foxnewslatino with your thoughts.

Related:
* See the Rupert Murdoch page
* Chicago: fake document raid leads to pro-illegal immigration protest

[1] latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/03/14/
memoir-illegal-sesame-street