Jose Antonio Vargas has a Pulitzer Prize, but he lacks a Green Card. Vargas came to the United States at age 12 to discover his immigration papers were fake a few years later. He went on to a brilliant career winning the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 2008. Maria Hinojosa talks to him about his upcoming documentary, the media bias against undocumented immigrants, and President Obama as the #DeporterInChief.
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I agree with Mr. Vargas on the US’s lack of a attention of the event in Venezuela is a shortcoming, but Ukraine draws attention due Russia’s increasing interest in it’s former territories as well as still possessing nukes and being a major hydrocarbon exporter. Russia has so much more “throw weight” than Venezuela does at this time so it draws focus in much the same way and becomes our national focus because of that and the historic baggage we share. The thing is we’re also not paying attention to Turkey and it’s slow, and hopefully temporary, turn towards a more totalitarian government and the developing situation in Taiwan where a portion of the populace is protesting a treaty creating closer economic ties between them and China. Theres a great deal to pay attention to and we are ignoring all of it to some degree or another.
However the US ignores South and Central America to it’s peril since we need to redefine our relationship with them and find ways to create a more cooperative alliance. The thing is if the US paid closer attention to the situation in Venezuela it would generate a great deal of suspicion in the Venezuelan government since they fear our involvement, again. There are no easy paths.