CBS Finds Sympathetic College Student to Use to Promote Obama’s Push for ‘Dream Act’

Pedro Ramirez knows his “future depends on” President Barack Obama’s success in passing “immigration reform,” specifically the “Dream Act,” CBS’s John Blackstone asserted in a Tuesday night story which corroborated the need for Obama’s quest by holding up Ramirez as an innocent victim.

“He is student body president at California State University at Fresno where he'll graduate this month following years of accomplishment,” Blackstone heralded, “until his parents admitted to him they've been living here illegally since he was three years old. Last year he joined other young undocumented immigrants pushing for passage of the Dream Act. It would award legal residency to children brought to America before they were 16 as long as they graduate from high school and go on to college or the military.”

Linking Ramirez’s plight to Obama’s policy solution, Blackstone asserted: “On the Texas border today, the President called for those who want immigration reform to help push an entrenched Congress.”

CBS News political analyst John Dickerson soon helpfully pointed out: “The most specific thing the President can talk about at the moment is how much tougher he's been on illegal immigrants than in previous administrations.”

Blackstone concluded: “Meanwhile, in the next few weeks some 65,000 students who came here illegally as children will graduate from high school, but for now they'll face a life in the shadows in America.”
 
2006: “ABC & NBC Celebrate Princeton Salutatorian Who's an Illegal”

From the Tuesday, May 10 CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: In other news tonight, President Obama has made his first trip to the border with Mexico since taking office. Speaking in El Paso, Texas, he said the border is more secure now than ever before. Reason enough, he said, for Congress to act on immigration reform for the eleven million people living in the U.S. illegally. Here's John Blackstone.

JOHN BLACKSTONE: For Pedro Ramirez, there is one hard fact about immigration reform -- his future depends on it.

PEDRO RAMIREZ: I have aspirations and dreams just like anybody else.

BLACKSTONE: He is student body president at California State University at Fresno where he'll graduate this month following years of accomplishment.

RAMIREZ: In sports I did marching band and I did extracurricular activities and I excelled academically. And so I felt I was as American as anybody else.

BLACKSTONE: Until his parents admitted to him they've been living here illegally since he was three years old. Last year he joined other young undocumented immigrants pushing for passage of the Dream Act. It would award legal residency to children brought to America before they were 16 as long as they graduate from high school and go on to college or the military. Supporters of the Dream Act were disappointed when the Senate failed to join the House in passing it in December. On the Texas border today, the President called for those who want immigration reform to help push an entrenched Congress.

BARACK OBAMA: We can do it.

BLACKSTONE: The President is trying to satisfy disenchanted Latino voters who helped get him elected.

U.S. REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ, (D) ILLINOIS: I would like to see a community marching in lockstep with this President, but two years transpired, nothing happened in the Congress.

BLACKSTONE: For Republicans in Congress, strengthening border security is a higher priority than anything that could be seen as amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: The most specific thing the President can talk about at the moment is how much tougher he's been on illegal immigrants than in previous administrations. Republicans challenge that.

BLACKSTONE: Meanwhile, in the next few weeks some 65,000 students who came here illegally as children will graduate from high school, but for now they'll face a life in the shadows in America. John Blackstone, CBS News, San Francisco.