Debunking a PragerU Video About U.S. Immigration

I’m Mr. Beat I teach social studies,   and most of my videos are explainer-type  videos meant to inform and educate. If I ever do make a video that's an opinion video, I let you know up  front that it's an opinion video.   The Dude: Well...that's like your opinion, man. Exactly. I also get things wrong sometimes, but I do my  best to get things right. My agenda is the truth.  Some YouTube channels have a different agenda. PragerU, which is short for Prager University,  is an organization that creates short,   animated videos to promote a conservative  agenda. So what does PragerU’s version of   “conservative” look like? Well, their website says  they believe in “economic and religious freedom,   a strong military that protects  our allies, and in the religious   values that inform Western civilization,  also known as Judeo-Christian values.”   So I guess religious freedom is cool to them but  they like Jewish and Christian values better? Anyway, the conservative radio talk show host  Dennis Prager and his colleague Allen Estrin   created it in 2010 to fight what they perceived a  “liberal bias” in the American education system. It’s propaganda. PragerU  is straight up propaganda.   Their mission is not to inform and educate,  but to indoctrinate. And honestly I'm ok with propaganda. I'm totally fine with that. The problem with PragerU   is that they present themselves as a  legitimate educational institution. On their YouTube channel, they state  “PragerU is an online video resource   promoting knowledge and clarity on life's  biggest and most interesting topics.   We gather some of the world's best thinkers  and distill their best ideas into free,   5-minute videos on things ranging from history  and economics to science and happiness.” My point for reading that is that  I’ve found a lot of people don’t know   they make propaganda videos. Unsuspecting folks  may think they are simply an educational channel,   when they are not. When I first came across them,  I know I thought that. And PragerU is highly   influential, especially to younger folks. Their  videos have billions of views. They also recently   started a program to try to get their videos in  more social studies curriculums. Craig Strazzeri,   the chief marketing officer of PragerU, said  thousands of educators have already signed up,   adding: “Ideally, every school in  America would show PragerU videos   in the classroom on a regular basis  to help educate the next generation.” Educate? Like I said, more like “indoctrinate.” If you Google “PragerU Debunked,” you’ll get  thousands of videos and articles debunking   PragerU videos. Often however, the  videos are like 30 minutes long,   because of how much bull crap the  debunking videos have to call out. But that is precisely what I’m going to do  in this video. I’m going to fact check a   five-and-a-half minute video PragerU made called  “A Nation of Immigrants,” and hopefully do it   in well less than 30 minutes, although  this introduction has already been way too long. “A Nation of Immigrants” seems harmless at first,  but the more you critically think about it,   oh my it is so misleading. Hosted by Michelle  Malkin, who is a daughter of immigrants herself,   the video’s main claim is  that :39 “The United States   still maintains the most generous  immigration policies in the world.” That argument is misleading. In absolute numbers,   yes, the United States has more  immigrants than any other country.   However, a lower percentage of its population  are immigrants compared to many other countries.  Here’s a sample: New Zealand - 22.3% of its population   was born in a foreign country In Canada, it’s 21.3%  Sweden - 20.0% Ireland - 17.1%  Germany - 15.7% So what  about the United States? 14%  Well based on that data, you could argue that  New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, Ireland, and Germany   all have more generous immigration  policies compared to the United States. :56 “The United States has more   immigrants as a percentage of its total  population than any time since 1890.”  She’s right, but context  is definitely needed here.  For a big chunk of the previous century,  immigration levels were kept very low due   to xenophobia. When the American government  DID allow immigration during that time,   it allowed immigrants to only come  from northern European countries. For most of the early history of the United  States, it basically had no immigration   laws. Borders were open, and anyone who could  afford the boat ticket could enter the country.   That all began to change in the late 1800s,  when the first major immigration laws were   passed to exclude criminals, poor folks, and  those classified as “lunatics” or “idiots.”   Then of course, there was the infamous Chinese  Exclusion Act, which went into effect on May 6,   1882, which banned Chinese workers. The Chinese  Exclusion Act was actually the only law to prevent   all members of a specific ethnic or national  group from immigrating to the United States. Still, most immigrants could easily enter  the country, and that’s why sooo many came in the   late 1800s. It wasn’t until immigrants started  coming from Southern and Eastern Europe in mass   numbers that Americans started freaking out.  In the 1920s, the U.S. government began quotas   on immigration, prioritizing Northern  and Western Europeans over other groups. Between the 1920s and 1950s, residents  of only three countries—Ireland,   Germany and the United Kingdom—got nearly 70% of  the quota visas available to enter the U.S. and   immigration dropped to some of the lowest levels  we have ever seen in American history. The U.S. government turned down millions, like  the Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany in   the years right before and during World War Two.  Many later ended up dying during the Holocaust. In 1965, Congress passed the  Immigration and Nationality Act,   which made immigration more fair and open.  It undid the preference for Northern Europe,   putting all countries on a level playing  field, and opened up immigration to the   rest of the world. This is still  the system the country has today. 1:06 -- “176 different languages are spoken among  students in the New York City School System” Did you know there are at least 430 languages  actively spoken in the United States? 167 of   those are Native American languages. The  United States has no official language,   and there has always been language diversity  within the United States. Immigrants today also   speak English at a greater rate than immigrants  100 years ago. 84% of recent immigrants speak   English, compared with only about half  who came through during the late 1800s. 1:19 -- “American grants permanent  residence to 1,000,000 people every year”  One million sounds like a lot, but remember  America’s population is over 330 million. 86%   of Americans were born in the United States, and  3.8 million Americans are born there each year. Family-based immigration is part of its current  immigration system, and is aimed to help immigrant   families immigrate together, because maintaining  a family unit is better for both the immigrants   and society at large. However, this system  is often attacked by anti-immigrant groups. 1:30 - 1:55 -- Chain Migration Chart  - “3.45 Additional Relatives each”  Grab your blanket, because it’s about to get  scary. Ok,   first of all, most immigrants don’t sponsor  a relative. The research she is referencing   is from a study called Family Sponsorship and  Late-Age Immigration in Aging America. In it,   the authors estimate that each “initiating  immigrant” eventually sponsors 3.45 immigrants,   on average. But what is an “initiating  immigrant?” The first person in a family   unit to come to the United States. So that  3.45 number comes from the entire chain.   Say an immigrant worker sponsors their spouse.  Well, their spouse could sponsor their Mother   who could then sponsor her brother. The  Mother and her brother both count as part   of the original employment immigrant’s chain.  And so, the mother is not creating a new chain. So that 3.45 number isn’t so crazy now,   is it? PragerU is actually showing a  family tree where one person is apparently   sponsoring 18 people, which again, is  over five times the average number. It’s also not a simple process to sponsor a  loved one. If you want to help your family   member immigrate to the United States, you have  to pay a $535 filing fee and provide proof that   you can financially support both yourself and  your relative without government assistance.   Once your relative gets to the United States,  you are legally responsible for supporting them,   and if you don’t the government will fine  you. In the current immigration system,   folks hoping to come to the United States  must go through an intensive vetting process,   which includes multiple background checks, medical  examinations, and in-person interviews with   American Immigration Officials. The review  process lasts an average of almost 10 months. But many immigrants have to wait much longer  before coming to the United States. Let’s go back   to the earlier example, with the spouse sponsoring  their mother who then sponsors her brother. The   spouse would have to become a naturalized  citizen first, which takes a minimum of five   years. It would then take at least a year for the  mother to get her green card, and then she would   have to wait another five years to be naturalized  so she could apply to sponsor her brother. Then,   they would wait for at least 13 years or longer  for a green card for her brother. So basically,   the brother wouldn’t be able to become a U.S.  citizen for at least 24 years after the spouse   first came to the country. Have I lost you yet?  See this is why PragerU videos are so short.   They leave out all the nuance, all  the complicated stuff, all the critical thinking. Anyway... 2:05 -- “Another 3,500,000” No, you don’t get to count those  immigrants twice. It’s still just   a million a year. They're counted  the same. It’s not an “additional” number.  2:10 -- “In addition, an estimated 100,000  refugees and asylum-seekers, people who   claim to be fleeing political or personal  strife abroad, enter the country annually.”  No. Again, you don’t get to count those  immigrants thrice. They are still part of that original one million a year statistic. And refugees  also go through a very rigorous vetting process. 2:38 -- 500,000 Diversity Visa Lottery  - “Don’t need a high school education”  There you go again. No, you don’t get  to count those immigrants quadrice.   Wait, I don’t think that’s a word. Yet. But  yeah, it’s still just a million a year. Oh,   and plus, the number she actually gives is  for 10 years. The U.S. grants only around   50,000 Diversity Visas each year and again,  that’s part of that original 1 million number. Michelle: Diversity visa applicants don't need a high school education, job skills, or pretty much anything. Yeah that’s bull crap. Diversity  Visa applicants absolutely do   have to have at least a high school  education or at least two years of   work experience in a job that requires at  least two years of training or experience. 3:07 -- “This nonstop flow of new legal immigrants, based on family ties instead of skills,  abilities, and allegiance to American values”  Well, it’s funny she says that, because the  average new immigrant is more likely   to have a college degree than the average American  citizen. Currently, 15% of American nurses, 20% of   American surgeons, and 22% of Americans working  in STEM fields were born in a foreign country.  Getting rid of family sponsorship would  actually lead to less highly-skilled   immigrants coming to the United States. While it is true that family-based immigrants   tend to start out at more lower skilled jobs when  they first come to the country, in the long   run immigrants achieve higher mobility and success  than those same employment-based immigrants. While   many folks like Malkin worry that family-based  immigrants are a drain on the resources of the   country, there is no proof of that. If anything,  the responsibility for family-based immigration   costs is not on the American taxpayer, but  the individuals sponsoring their relatives. 3:35 -- 11 million, but that  number never seems to change  Oh but it does change, Michelle.  The undocumented population   peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million and  is less than 10.5 million today. 4:00 -- “Building a high tech border  barrier would help stem this flow”  Despite spending over $3.5  billion each year on border security,   there is no evidence that   high tech border security would actually help end illegal immigration. Most undocumented  immigrants came to the United States legally   and just overstayed their visas. In fact, the  militarization of the United States border is   actually what made the problem of undocumented  immigration much worse by turning what had   once been a seasonal in/out flow of workers  into a permanent undocumented immigration. And of course she ends it with a bunch  of platitudes that everyone agrees with,   so essentially it just turns  into a straw man attack. But overall, just remember that some of what  she said was actually true. Some of what she said was   straight up false. Most of what she  said was just misleading. So hopefully watching this long video gave you some more context and nuance. You were paying attention, weren’t you.   Jacob! (snaps fingers) Jacob! Pay attention! This video was made with the support of Define American. Whew. That was a lot of work just trying to  fact check a five-minute PragerU video,   which is why I want to thank the organization Define  American for their help   making this video. So what do YOU think about immigration? Are YOU an immigrant? If so, I wanna hear from you. Give me a shout out and a holler in the comments below and thank you so much for watching.

Channel: Mr. Beat

Views: 205,929

Rating: 4.4207606 out of 5

Keywords: What PragerU Gets Wrong About U.S. Immigration, Debunking PragerU on U.S. Immigration, debunking prageru, Mr. Beat PragerU, prageru a nation of immigrants debunked, prageru a nation of immigrants reaction video, prageru is indoctrination, prageru immigration debunked, prageru misinformation, conservative propaganda prageru, u.s. immigration myths, prageru u.s. immigration myths, top myths about american immigration, why immigration is good for us, immigration myths, PragerU

Id: wZEomO2OsAc

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/treyhest]

Mr beat officially breadtube

[u/cyanidesquirrel]

I love how PragerU chooses who they feature in each video. They get a child of immigrants to promote anti-immigrant bullshit and always get a black person to spout white supremacist talking points. See white folks? It’s ok to be racist and xenophobic if a person of color says it.

[u/lobnob]

Wow, this guy must be AMAZING to have as a teacher. Great video!

[u/LineOfInquiry]

Mr Beat makes excellent videos I’m glad to see him expanding his content : )

[u/Polandgod75]

Non Native American Americans complaining about immigration is like Christian and Muslims being anti-Semitic, it the most illogical discrimination(granted all discrimination is illogical).

[u/Coolbatguy]

Isn’t this guy like a libertarian?

[u/IceFireTerry]

I like his videos

[u/troy626]

I like this guys videos

[u/EdTollet]

I like Mr Beat’s accent. I think he’s from Kansas?