In a segment on recent protests against proposed immigration restrictions, nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck stated that Mexico “has been overtaken by lawbreakers from the bottom to the top,” adding, “And now what you're protesting for is to have lawbreakers come here.” Beck, who was recently hired to host a new program on CNN Headline News, made his remarks during the March 27 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program. During the past week, thousands of people in Los Angeles -- including hundreds of high school students -- marched in the streets to protest a federal immigration bill that would criminalize the provision of aid to undocumented immigrants and make it a felony to cross the border illegally.
Earlier in the same program, Beck also lambasted three members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who were rescued in Iraq last week in a British-led military operation. He asked, "[I]s there any way we can get the Marines to recapture them [the activists], kidnap them, and bring them back to their captors that they love so much?" He also claimed that the activists were “quick to blame the coalition forces for their kidnapping.” As Media Matters for America previously noted, on March 23, the CPT organization, whose mission, according to its website, is to reduce violence by “getting in the way,” appended an addendum to a press release on the rescue, stating: “We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have [kidnapped activists] Jim [Loney], Harmeet [Singh Sooden] and Norman [Kember] freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity ... We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet.”
Media Matters for America has urged its readers to contact CNN and call for the news channel to stop providing a platform for Beck's conservative misinformation and offensive statements.
From the March 27 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:
BECK: They wasted absolutely no time on their website praising thanks upon the U.S. military who went in and rescued them, uh, they also on the website had strong words for their captors -- no hang on. I'm sorry, no -- I have that reversed. Actually the ex-hostages were quick to blame the coalition forces for their kidnapping. On their website they offered words of goodwill toward their captors. Remember, one in the four had been beheaded by the kidnappers. The U.S. Marines--they were not, they didn't, they were not released, the U.S. Marines went in and rescued them. And I thought to myself, is there any way we can get the Marines to recapture them, kidnap them, and bring them back to their captors that they love so much? Why are we wasting our time rescuing people like this, who don't have any worth. You had your friend and your, you, your cohort beheaded, the U.S. military risks their life to go save you, and you bash them? You know what, put them back on a plane, send them back there.
[...]
BECK: First of all, you are, you are, protesting -- and I appreciate the fact that it was peaceful -- but you are protesting for something that is illegal. You are protesting for others to stay here who are here illegally. And I don't understand that. I don't understand that for a couple of reasons. You want to leave Mexico for a reason, and that reason is that it is so riddled with corruption that you cannot have a job and make money there. It is so riddled with drugs and corruption and mob that you cannot raise a family. It is a country that has been overtaken by lawbreakers from the bottom to the top. And now, what you're protesting for is to have lawbreakers come here. And you might say: “Well they're just trying to get here, that's only one law.” It's a law.
