On Thursday the Obama White House released a video to promote immigration reform. It hasn’t gotten much play or comment, which the White House may not mind considering the fact that towards the end of its 3:15 run, the video’s producers deface the American flag.
The video uses a white board technique similar to the old UPS commercials to explain its take on immigration reform. The video bases its happy pitch on the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the Senate immigration bill to argue that passing that bill will increase jobs and innovation while reducing the deficit. Left entirely out of the White House’s video is the fact that legalizing millions of low-skill workers will hurt Americans at the bottom rungs of the economy, who are mainly minorities, by dramatically increasing the number of workers in an economy that is barely producing jobs. Legalization will also increase the strain that ObamaCare is already placing on the economy, strain that the CBO missed when it scored that bill as a deficit-reducer. The CBO’s score did not take into account that ObamaCare would turn out to be a massive job killer.
Among its erroneous assumptions, the video asserts that if the Senate’s immigration reform passes, “everyone will be playing by the same rules.” The fact is, legalizing the millions of illegal aliens who are already in the US ahead of those waiting in line to come here legally creates a new set of rules that favors law-breakers over those who abide by the law. It also effectively rewards employers who have knowingly hired illegal aliens. Additionally, through ObamaCare, the Senate bill creates an incentive for US companies to hire the newly legalized aliens instead of hiring U.S. citizens, to avoid the now delayed employer mandate. And that assertion omits entirely how the Obama administration has used so-called “green jobs” to set up rules and loans that favor the president’s political supporters over others. The video also makes assumptions for U.S. economic performance as far out as the year 2032, predictions that simply cannot be taken seriously.
At the 2:58 mark, the producers offer this image.
Viewers see the U.S. Capitol in the center, with Democrat and Republican characters at the bottom agreeing with what the producers have written on the American flag. The producers have reduced the number of stars on the flag, presumably to simplify hand drawing it, and replaced the red and white stripes on the flag with their own talking points promoting the Senate’s immigration bill. The cartoon also glosses over the fact that not all Democrats or Republicans agree with the Senate’s version of immigration reform. A majority of Americans and a majority of Hispanic Americans support reform that puts border security ahead of legalization, which is the reverse of the Senate bill as it was passed.
Defacing the flag might not seem to be a big deal to some, but the entire immigration debate touches on the value and responsibilities of American citizenship, the rule of law, and respect for American national sovereignty.
This isn’t the first time Obama’s political team has defaced the American flag. During the 2012 election, his campaign released this version of the flag, which replaces the stars representing the 50 states with his campaign logo, and mutes the red, white and blue colors.
That flag briefly appeared in the Obama campaign store, until it drew unwanted attention. It was quietly disappeared after it stoked controversy.
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