The Preston reading, particularly post-election, highlighted the fact that fear-inducing narratives and anecdotes (even when they are untruthful) have more political purchase than data-driven and sound policy when it comes to immigration. It’s frustrating to me that people are voting for things based off of politically-charged quips and fabricated narratives instead of from a place of actually understanding, as Preston laid out, both Harris’s and Trump’s track record and proposed policies.

That being said, I do not agree with all of Harris’s immigration policies. Particularly raising the legal standard for proving that you are part of a PSG concerns me. While the proposed expedited review process will help with backlogs at EOIR and USCIS, I’m worried about new arrivals who will not have legal representation, who might otherwise have meritorious claims.

While I definitely do not agree with Harris’s policies on immigration, as Preston points out, they are undoubtedly better than Trump’s. People would understand that Harris has more sound policies if they would take the time to learn about her policies in comparison to Trump’s record. Yet these “punchy” narratives seem to carry more political weight in voters’ eyes. I’m curious to know what people think about how (or even whether) we can fight against these fear-inducing narratives that seem to capture more voters than sound policy that offers a practical solution—and whether journalism might have a role to play in this.

Towards the end of the article Preston highlights an important point that I think is often neglected in discussions about immigration: that immigration is a public safety issue. As she points out, if mixed status families and undocumented immigrants fear being deported by police officers or fear having their status questioned by officers they will actively avoid reporting any kind of crime that occurs. I think Trump has led his constituents to believe that new arrivals or undocumented people are somehow separate from the community of people that are documented, but as we’ve discussed in class, these people are deeply enmeshed in their communities. Particularly given the fact that Governor Abbott has made a conscious attempt to bus new arrivals to cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia where interpersonal violence is already extremely concentrated to begin with, we should be concerned about the implications Trump’s plan for mass deportation will have with respect to reporting crime in these areas. It seems, unsurprisingly, counterintuitive to me that the issues that Trump is running on—which include fearmongering about a “rise in crime”—are going to be perpetuated (not solved) by the policies that he plans to implement.