While discussing President Obama’s executive actions on immigration Thursday night, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told journalist and activist Jose Antonio Vargas that he and other undocumented immigrants “don’t deserve to be here.”
O’Reilly ran through Vargas’s background as an immigrant who came to the United States from the Philippines at age 12 and then worked on a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post team before publicly revealing his undocumented status.
“Surely you understand how millions of Americans say ‘You know what, bad behavior is being rewarded’ … but there are a lot of people who aren’t of your circumstance, who came here in devious ways, who did things they shouldn’t have done, who didn’t contribute to our society,” O’Reilly said. “Yet they’re in the same blanket. So how do you justify that?”
“I don’t know if people know this, but more than half of undocumented people in this country have been here for 10 years or longer,” Vargas responded. “This has been our home, this is where we go to school, this is where we work, this is where we go to church, this is what we call to be our own communities.”
Vargas lamented that the President’s immigration actions were so politicized before O’Reilly cut in to tell him the real “deal.”
“It is a compassionate move, but it may not be a just move because you and the other people here illegally don’t deserve to be here,” O’Reilly said. “That’s harsh. It’s harsh, okay, but you don’t have an entitlement to be here.”
“Sir, I don’t feel entitled to be here,” Vargas responded. “I don’t ask for any sort of entitlement. All I know is this is where I grew up, this is my home, my family is here.”
Watch below via Fox News:
Seeing all these pols and commentators with their “briefs in a wad” and “their hair on
fire” at the same time is a sight to behold,and will continue for awhile
and can be stopped cold by Bohener bringing the immigration bill to the
floor.Hey Mr Speaker “CHECKMATE”.These folks,repubs(small R) don’t
realize yet IMHO they are so predictable and it so funny to see them"
chasing their own shadows".
I’m not sure anyone “deserves to be here”. Do we “deserve” to be born?
He’s taking jobs away from American Pulitzer Prize winners and I resent that!!
Now that’s amazing. Bill O’Reilly telling someone they don’t deserve to be here. O’Reilly may be entitled to be here, but if there was any individual who didn’t deserve to be here, it’s that freak.
I know! If only he weren’t here, I could have his job as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. It’s not fair!