Fox News Edits Video To Make Look Like Obama Is Illegally Enforcing Immigration Action

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Fox News hit a new low today by selectively editing video of President Obama’s immigration town hall to make it look like the president is illegally enforcing his immigration executive actions.

Edited Fox News video of Obama’s remarks:

Fox News played a clip of the president saying at the immigration town hall last night, “The bottom line is, is that, if somebody’s working for ICE and there’s a policy and they don’t follow the policy, there’re going to be consequences to it.” Fox’s Heather Nauert added, “Really? Well, President Obama likened it to military personnel being expected to follow their orders. There’s just one problem though with this comparison. A federal judge has issued a ruling halting the executive immigration order in its tracks.”

Fox News edited the clip and added their own commentary at the end to create the appearance that that the president was illegally forcing ICE officers to carry out his immigration executive actions.

Here is the full transcript of the president’s comments:

THE PRESIDENT: The bottom line is, José, that I’m using all of the legal power vested in me in order to solve this problem. And one of the things about living in a democracy is that we have separation of powers — we have Congress, we have the judicial branch — and right now, we’ve got some disagreements with some members of Congress and some members of the judiciary in terms of what should be done.

But what I’m confident about is, ultimately, this is going to get done. And the reason it’s going to get done is it’s the right thing to do and it is who we are as a people. (Applause.)

MR. DIAZ-BALART: But what are the consequences? Because how do you ensure that ICE agents or Border Patrol won’t be deporting people like this? I mean, what are the consequences?

THE PRESIDENT: José, look, the bottom line is, is that if somebody is working for ICE and there is a policy and they don’t follow the policy, there are going to be consequences to it. So I can’t speak to a specific problem. What I can talk about is what’s true in the government, generally.

In the U.S. military, when you get an order, you’re expected to follow it. It doesn’t mean that everybody follows the order. If they don’t, they’ve got a problem. And the same is going to be true with respect to the policies that we’re putting forward.

Notice that the president didn’t say is true. He put his comments in the future tense of going to be true. This means that Obama isn’t currently implementing his immigration actions.

The president was talking about his very legal power to prioritize deportations, not the program where people can sign up. Fox News created the false impression that the president was carrying out his immigration actions, and punishing ICE officers who didn’t follow his orders.

Facts are always optional at Fox News, but their latest edit of the president was designed to create the false impression that Obama is a lawless president. The tactic of deceptive editing is a technique that Fox uses to keep their audience misinformed.

These kinds of stunts are why Fox News is not a news network.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association