Last month, the head of Florida’s prison system, Mark Inch, proposed the introduction of a program whereby prison guards would train to become immigration agents so that they would be able to “identify and process criminal aliens.” The Tampa Bay News reported that Inch hoped this program would “serve the residents of the state of Florida” by allowing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to identify “criminal aliens who may pose a risk to public safety.”[1]
This act would suggest that Inch, and perhaps the residents of Florida, views illegal immigrants as dangers to society. Inch’s views on undocumented immigrants are reflective of the way in which the media represents them, and his views are also most likely shared by the representative of Florida’s 19thcongressional district, Francis Rooney, judging by the bills he has sponsored on this topic during his time in office so far.[2]Rooney is a Republican with conservative views on immigration and immigration policy-making.[3]He represents an area of Florida that is also Republican; its constituents voted for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election.[4]However, research shows that undocumented immigrants are not as dangerous as many US citizens believe them to be. I argue that these negative views towards undocumented immigrants are popular within this district, and in fact among US citizens in general, for a couple of main reasons: the media’s influence on citizens, the false theories that are circulating regarding undocumented immigrants, in particular (in this case) illegal immigrants and crime, and Rooney’s policy-making. As a result of these factors, I believe that undocumented immigrants are being treated unfairly and that Rooney’s policy-making regarding this issue should be changed.
Rooney’s recent bill sponsorship has included voting for a bill called ‘H.R. 2233, the American Jobs First Act.’ This act would “eliminate the pay discrepancy between foreign and American high-tech employees and would ensure the visas are only granted to qualified high-skilled workers instead of entry-level workers”[5]. This implies that Rooney thinks of illegal immigrants as people who are taking away American workers’ jobs and affecting the US economy in a negative way. Research has shown through their research that ethnocentrism is present among US citizens living with Latino immigrants (Valentino, Brader, Jardina 2013). (Latinos make up 19.43 percent of the population of Florida’s 19thcongressional district.[6]) However, they also show that ethnocentrism does not “drive policy views or beliefs about the impact of immigration on the nation’s economy or cultural values.” This begs the question: why is Rooney voting for this kind of bill, when his constituents are likely not worried about the economic side of illegal immigration? It is my belief that Rooney should not focus on bills that would limit job opportunities for undocumented immigrants. This is not what US citizens are worried about in terms of the undocumented Latino immigrant population. If he wants to represent on immigration in terms of the views of his citizens, he should vote on bills that reflect the true concerns of his constituents, not just on aspects of illegal immigration that are perceived threats to society.
Perceived threats lead to major misunderstanding when it comes to opinions and policy-making regarding undocumented immigrants. The media plays a huge role in this. The media has a great amount of control over a population’s opinion on a certain political issue. The content they choose to produce and the tone with which they produce it can significantly influence the perspective with which we view an issue. The media can frame the issue of immigration in either a negative or positive way, and this is often negative in areas with a white, Republican majority, according to research (Adida, Kim, Platas 2018). According to research, the more a certain issue is talked about in the news, the more “perceived importance” it has for citizens (Dunaway, Brandon, Abranjo 2010). This in turn likely causes the citizens’ perspectives to change about this specific topic. Naples News increased its media coverage concerning undocumented immigrants during the period of the government shutdown earlier this year.[7]Upon analysis, I found that its coverage generally had a negative tone, and so I can predict that this caused the population of Naples to have a more negative view about undocumented immigrants.
Therefore, the media is greatly to blame for the development of a skewed perspective of undocumented immigration on the part of the residents of Florida’s 19thcongressional district. Rooney, in order to solve this issue of mis-portrayal, should attempt to represent on immigration without being influenced by the media.
Furthermore, Rooney voted in favor of a bill, H.R. 486, Grants Law, that would, according to him, “end the “catch and release” of illegal immigrants who have been arrested for deportable crimes, protecting our citizens by not allowing these aliens to be released back into our communities.”[8]Here Rooney shows that he has the opinion that illegal immigrants lead to crime and are a danger to the community. However, research shows that increased rates of immigration in general actually lead to decreased rates of crime (Light, Miller 2018). Therefore, Rooney’s words perhaps are not based on evidence, but rather, as explained above, based on a skewed perspective of how much of a threat undocumented immigrants truly pose to US citizens. Rooney should instead focus on the correlation between undocumented immigrants and crime rates, using this to make a judgement instead of predicting the actions and the dangers of immigrants using pre-conceived ideas fed to society by the media.
To conclude, I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove that undocumented immigrants pose more of a threat to the safety of society in Florida than other residents. I do not believe that Rooney would be able to justify his bill sponsorships against undocumented immigrants because so many of the opinions surrounding illegal immigrants are based off of inaccurate theories that have arisen from biased, negative media coverage which has consequently influenced the perspectives of the citizens exposed to it.
Works cited:-
Adida, Claire L., Kim Yi Dionne, and Melina R. Platas. 2018. “Ebola, elections, and immigration: how politicizing an epidemic can shape public attitudes.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21565503.2018.1484376?needAccess=true
Dunaway, Johanna, Regina P. Brandon and Marisa A. Abrajano. 2010. “Agenda Setting, Public Opinion, and the Issue of Immigration Reform.” Social Science Quarterly 91 (2): 359-78. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42956406.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fdefault-
Light, Michael T., Miller, Ty, 2018. “Does undocumented immigration increase violent crime?” Criminology.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6241529/
Valentino, Nicholas A., Ted Brader, and Ashley E. Jardina. 2013. “Immigration Opposition Among U.S. Whites: General Ethnocentrism or Media Priming of Attitudes About Latinos?” Political Psychology 34 (2):149-66. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00928.x
[1]Florida’s prison guards may double as immigration officers (2019)https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/05/15/floridas-prison-guards-may-double-as-immigration-officers/
[2]Rooney’s official website https://francisrooney.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=14926
[3]Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Rooney
[4]Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_19th_congressional_district#Presidential_Election_History
[5]Rooney’s official website https://francisrooney.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=14926
[6]Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_19th_congressional_district#Presidential_Election_History
[7]https://www.naplesnews.com/search/immigration%20.%20/
[8]https://francisrooney.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=14926
