Boston’s El Planeta Slams Boston Herald for Anti-Immigrant Front Page

This afternoon, Boston’s Spanish-language El Planeta newspaper tweeted the following to us:

@latinorebels Boston Herald insists on using backward yellow journalism to cover immigration #WTF http://t.co/ooVTUATv3S … …

— El Planeta (@elplanetaboston) May 21, 2014

The link lead to an editorial written in Spanish, where El Planeta lambasted today’s front page of The Boston Herald: “[The cover] not only offends the Somerville mayor but also the city’s immigrant community, which represents an important socio-economic factor.”

Via El Planeta

The Herald, known in Boston for its tabloid-like journalism, was referring to the announcement by Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone to no longer have his city’s police detain immigrants “solely to allow federal agents to pick them up for suspected immigration violations.”

The El Planeta story also said the following (our translation):

In many cases undocumented immigrants are treated like dangerous criminals when their only crime is to live in the shadows.

We have worked hard to not only make people understand that the word “illegal” should not be used to refer to a person, but also the importance of comprehensive immigration reform for the United States as a society.

One of the dangerous consequences of this anti-immigrant harassment that has increased with the Secure Communities program is the fear that undocumented individuals will not report crimes against them for risk of being deported.

We applaud the effort and courage it took Mayor Curtatone to announce this historic order, making Somerville a city free of anti-immigrant harassment.

El Planeta’s main office is located in Somerville.