Univision anchor and left-wing activist Jorge Ramos said DACA recipients will aggressively use an “in-your-face” protest strategy to demand change.
Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday evening after President Donald Trump’s administration announced that it would wind down former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive amnesty program, Ramos said that the DREAMers will “keep on fighting” but will be more confrontational than their parents, who “thought by being invisible, they could survive.”
“Now the DREAMers have a completely different strategy,” Ramos said. “They have an in-your-face strategy.”
DACA activists, some of whom were later arrested, protested in front of Trump Tower in New York, the White House, and Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC, and Ramos referenced those Tuesday afternoon protests.
“You saw what happened in front of Trump Tower,” Ramos said, adding that DACA protesters shut down Fifth Avenue in New York.
He added that DACA activists “are going to do anything they can in order to … change things. They are not just going to wait.”
Ramos said he has been following the immigration issue since 2001 and does not see the “political will” for a broad amnesty bill in 2017 or 2018 in Congress, and that is why DACA, he said, will be one of the most important issues in the next presidential election.
Not only does Ramos support the DACA activists, but he has also urged other purportedly “objective” journalists to become activists to confront Trump. At least Ramos, unlike the phony CNN anchors and reporters who masquerade as “neutral” personalities, is open and honest about where he stands, which, in the end, makes him more authentic regardless of whether one agrees with his views.
Ramos spoke at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism’s commencement ceremony earlier this year and told the graduates that “neutrality” is often not an option for reporters today, and journalists should not focus on just getting both sides of the story. He said when “faced with racism, discrimination, corruption, public lies, discrimination, and violation of human rights,” journalists should “take a stand.”
“You didn’t come to Berkeley just to be a tape recorder,” Ramos said, adding that that type of journalism was “journalism as a selfie—you in front of the news.”
“Real journalism,” according to Ramos, has an “ethical” and “moral” component because it should also be a “public service.” He said it has “never been more important” than to be a journalist in Trump’s America and those who will “make it” will be those who see journalism as a “mission.”
On Tuesday, DACA activists protested in the streets in places like New York and D.C., chanting “our streets” and telling Trump to “get out of the way.”