On Wednesday’s “CNN Newsroom,” CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta said that during his exchange with White House adviser Stephen Miller at the White House Press Briefing earlier in the day, he wanted to remind Miller of what the Statue of Liberty says, bringing in people from all walks of life is what makes America great, and America “was already great, because of immigrants in this country.” He also stated that the White House isn’t advancing a very strong argument for its new immigration proposal and is dog-whistling that it would look at the racial and ethnic flow of immigrants.
Acosta began by remarking, “Well, you can be Cuban and cosmopolitan, Brooke. I don’t know what to tell you.”
He continued, “I think when the White House has to resort to insulting reporters in that fashion, and we’ve seen this time and again, throughout the course of this administration, they’re just really not advancing a terribly powerful argument.”
Acosta also said he was simply trying to ask Miller as to whether the policy goes against a tradition of the US bringing in all different kinds of people.
He added, “I think this goes back to a problem that this White House has. Remember, when the president launched his campaign for president, he referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, and that bias against Latino immigrants has just sort of infected the president, some of his top officials, who deal with this issue of immigration, throughout that entire time period, and I think you saw some of that spill out in the briefing room today.”
Acosta also stated that there is a sense in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan that people have been unfairly displaced and that it’s “very powerful” when the president blames immigrants for that.
He concluded, “[W]hen you hear the president make some of the comments that he makes about immigrants, during the course of the campaign, talking about deportation forces and when you see Stephen Miller, a policy adviser to the president, talking about an English language preference for people coming into this country, it is a wink, it is a dog whistle to certain parts of this country that they are going to be looking at the racial and ethnic flow of immigrants coming into this country. I just think that’s undeniable. And I — so, I just wanted to remind him, this is what the Statue of Liberty says. This is what our tradition has always been in this country. We bring in people from all walks of life. It’s what makes America great. It was already great, because of immigrants in this country.”
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