https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/05/25/how-dangerous-is-it-when-trump-calls-some-immigrants-animals/?utm_term=.146a12ee9377

In a Washington Post article called “How Dangerous Is It when Trump Calls Some Immigrants ‘Animals’?” from May 2018, the connection between dehumanizing propaganda and participation in violence is analyzed, showing that while dehumanizing discourse does not directly cause violence, it prepares the way for the violent actions against immigrants. While President Trump’s descriptions of undocumented immigrants as “animals” or “rapists and criminals” alone do not motivate people to participate in violent actions against immigrants and only has a momentary impact on public opinion, repeated use of such language dangerously normalizes extreme perspectives by making the immigrant threat seem real, creating a path that makes violence a more acceptable behavior. News media coverage of Trump’s repeated use of such descriptions of immigrants means Trump’s language choices significantly influence American views towards immigrants and can promote negative perceptions and even violent actions against them.

Discussion question: Because Americans tend to have very strong and polarized opinions about President Trump, is repeated usage of dehumanizing language by Trump more or less dangerous than similar language usage by news media coverage of immigration that’s not directly related to Trump?

A Love Story at the Border

The Children of the Caravan

In this week’s discussion with Jorge Ramos, he said that he believes the only way to combat anti-immigrant sentiments is to humanize them by telling their stories.  It is clear from a look on his news website that he certainly tries to do this. For precept this week, I chose two articles that Ramos has reported on: “A Love Story at the Border” and “The Children of the Caravan”.

The first article reports on a father migrating to the United States from Honduras to get his daughter with epilepsy and learning difficulties proper care. The pair joined a caravan of migrants traveling from Hondorus because they could not pay the price a smuggler would request. Fortunately, activists and lawyers persuaded American immigration agents to expedite their case and allowed them to cross the border upon arrival.  The second article reports on the children of the caravan. He starts, “I’ve seen the ignorant, xenophobic rants on social media about the caravan. They’re terrorists in disguise. They’re Criminals. They’re invaders. They’ve been sent to invade and destabilize the United States. But in the main square of this small town in southern Mexico recently, all I could hear of the caravan were the children’s cries and their laughter.” He shares pictures and videos of the children to dispel the idea that the caravan is a threat.

Media coverage on Latino immigration has roughly paralleled actual rates of immigration from Latin America  (Valentino et. al 2012). The reading by Utych this week suggests that dehumanization in media increases anger and disgust toward immigrants, which causes anti-immigrant sentiments. These articles are trying to counteract that narrative.

Discussion Questions:

1. To what extent can articles like these counter-act the effects of other media attention on immigration sentiment?
2. Do you think individuals with anti-immigrant statements will see these articles and if so how would they respond to them?

The Making of an Online Moral Crisis

As we read this week, the media tends to portray immigrants in a negative light, which increases hostility towards immigration (Farris and Mohammed 2018). However, around the media’s coverage of family separation was less about the immigrants’ undocumented entry and more about the shock of the government trying to hide the situation. This Atlantic article is about how the information spread when it was finally exposed, creating national concern over how the U.S. government was treating immigrants. While the focus was naturally on immigrants’ documentation status as these individuals crossed the border illegally, the real emphasis was on the humanitarian crisis at the border under Trump’s family separation policy. Unsurprisingly, some Americans were still hostile towards these undocumented immigrants as the literature suggests, but in the case of family separation, the government was portrayed negatively rather than the immigrants. In turn, immigrants gained sympathy they often lack among the American public.

In precept this week, I think it would be interesting to discuss how exposing the government’s moral downfalls may result in more positive immigration sentiment among the American public. In addition,  does implicitly signaling immigrants’ documentation status rather than making it the forefront of an article make attitudes toward immigration more positive than negative?

This week we learned about the activism and contributions of DACA  and undocumented immigrants within the United States and their statuses. Within the article “Becoming DACAmented: Assessing the Short-Term Benefits of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)”  we learned from their study the social political affects of DACA on DACA recipients based off their exposure to “resources” that therefore seems to be able to determine the extent to which DACA recipients are able to take advantage of their status. In addition to this we also read the article about how “Dreamers” such as “Gabriela Cruz” have been able to make their mark on the current political stage and how they are currently affecting elections without necessary being part of the electorate. Articles such as these has in contemporary times lead to the “hyper visibility” of immigrants within the US. However, even with this hyper visibility there seems to be a racialization of immigration issues where within the  discussions of general immigration issues  (even within the context of this class and its syllabus) where immigrants with immigration issues seems to equate Hispanic or Latino.

This article by Jamila Osman a Somalian Writer, educator, and community organizer, attempts to “expand” current discussion on immigration and immigrant statuses and rights to include those who although although face immigrant issues, do not receive significant support from the immigrant community. Osman talks about the fact that although approx. 66,000 Haitian immigrants are up for deportation because of the potential end of TPS their issues/stories are often kept from the general population despite the fact that the Trumps administration is also trying to end TPS as a whole. Therefore, to build on Osman’s argument not only would this affect a significant portion of the current Haitian population but it would also affect a significant portion of the South Sudanese population, the  El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen US Population. However, these populations have been largely ignored because the immigration discussions has been not simply been centered but also encompassed by DACA, and the immigrants addressed within this conversations has simply been reduced to being Hispanic and Latino immigrants. Therefore, this article attempts to expand the view for us to see all immigrants and all of their issues which had been rendered invisible because their identities falls at the ” intersection of xenophobia and anti-black racism” and have therefore been failed by the “The immigrant rights movement ” despite the best efforts of activists within those communities.

Therefore my questions are:

1. How does the invisibility of black, TPS, and Afro Latinos from the contemporary discussions of immigration have provided them with both obstacles but also advantages?

2. How do we start including all immigrants within the discussion of immigration when historically a portion of the immigrant population have had their rights and even their issues largely ignored from the broader discussion?

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/black-lives-matter-immigrant-rights-movement-171210095207677.html