Politician’s, pundit’s, and the media’s portrayals of immigration as an “invasion,” “Flood,” “crime wave,” and so on are not new. They have been a part of american history for a very long time. It is a tried and true means of garnering votes. Politicians lie to drum up perceptions of immigrants as something to be feared, then promise to keep those immigrants out (if you vote accordingly). it is an illusion through and through that has been used historically. unfortunately, it often works.
These books are a great place to start reading about this history:
Jones, Reece. 2021. White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall. Boston: Beacon Press.
Chacón, Justin Akers and Mike Davis. 2006. No One Is Illegal. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Painter, Nell Irvin. 2010. The History of White People. New York: W.W. Norton.
In my forthcoming book, titled “Migrant Justice in the Age of Removal,” coming out in UGA Press in 2025, I review these issues. Here are some brief excerpts, with links to the referenced studies:
In “Why Border Enforcement Backfired” migration scholars and sociologists Douglas Massey, Jorge Durand, and Karen A. Pren (2016) outline the “militarization” of the U.S. border and the intensified illegalization of migration in the U.S. through a series of policies in the latter half of the 20th century, pushed by politicians who aimed to promote a “moral panic about the perceived threat of Latino immigration to the United States,” and “sought to mobilize political and material resources for their own benefit,” which resulted in a “self-perpetuating cycle of rising enforcement and increased apprehensions that resulted in the militarization of the border in a way that was disconnected from the actual size of the undocumented flow.”
According to Massey et al., historical data and policy analysis shows us that this shift in policy was not due to a logistical need, but to political drives that harped on opportunism and fear mongering to amass popular support for politicians—a perceived opportunity by “bureaucrats, politicians, and pundits” to gain or maintain power through the process of manufacturing fear and discontent among voting populations towards those other humans across the southern border (see also Nevins 2010; Ngai 2003). The subsequent “rise” of now “illegal” migration, which was actually just the labeling of already existing and/or cyclical migrants as illegal, then further created new openings “for political entrepreneurs of various stripes to cultivate a new politics of fear, framing Latino immigration as a grave threat to the nation through their manufactured illegality” (2015, 1560).
Chavez (2001; 2008), cited in Massey et al.’s research, documented the corresponding rise of “the Latino threat narrative” in the U.S. media between the 1970s and 1990s, and Massey and Pren (2012a) show, “that newspaper mentions of Mexican immigration as a crisis, flood, or invasion rose in tandem with border apprehensions from 1965 to 1979, pushing public opinion in a more conservative, anti-immigrant direction” (see also Massey and Pren 2012b).
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/covering-immigration/paper
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=22521
President Ronald Reagan was later one of the most outspoken anti-immigration politicians of the time, “who in 1985 declared undocumented migration to be ‘a threat to national security’ and warned that ‘terrorists and subversives are just two days driving time from the border crossing at Harlingen, Texas’ and that Communist agents were ready ‘to feed the anger and frustration of recent Central and South American immigrants who will not realize their own version of the American dream,’” (Massey et al. 2002, 87)—claims inflamed with Cold War paranoia that history has proven spurious.
https://www.russellsage.org/publications/beyond-smoke-and-mirrors
Of course, there was a massive surge in border spending and militarization in those decades. Perhaps most importantly to Massey’s work, while migration levels were, in actuality, largely stable through the 1970s and ‘80s, “the Latino Threat Narrative kept gaining traction to generate a rising moral panic about illegal aliens that produced a self-perpetuating increase in resources dedicated to border enforcement” (2016, 1562). Despite realities on the ground, tough migrant policy has continued to serve many politicians, bureaucrats, and pundits financially and professionally.
While the nativist sentiment worked well to ensure campaign contributions and a wider voter base, there were further financial motivations for these fear-inducing policies: campaign contributions
Scholars call these relationships the “Immigration Industrial Complex”
This “complex,” much like the prison- and military-industrial-complexes, includes a “confluence of public and private sector interests,” explains Golash-Boza (2009). The budget for immigration enforcement, e.g., wall materials, construction contracts, fences, surveillance technology, drones, security detail, and the now vast immigrant detention system have all been largely privatized over the years. Large checks arrive in politicians’ pockets in the form of campaign contributions from private contractors, with the largest amount going towards the lawmakers pushing hardest for anti-immigrant laws (with the above mentioned anti-immigrant discourse) and thus those willing to dole out both increased funding to immigrant enforcement agencies and the subsequent lucrative contracts to private actors to provide the resources, technology, and much of the services. It's a familiar tale seen in the prison and military industries that over the years has reached further and further into U.S. immigration enforcement.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-the-immigration-industrial-complex_b_5953b8cae4b0c85b96c65e2c
https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00193.x
Prior to his election, Trump received $1.7 million in campaign contributions from border security and immigration detention interests.
Prior to his election, Biden received $5 million in campaign contributions from border security and immigration detention interests.
We will have to wait and see how much Harris receives.
Misinformation is dangerous and used by politicians, pundits, and media outlets to sway political drives.
News Media Trends in the Framing of Immigration and Crime, 1990–2013
“Our results reveal that most immigration-crime news stories describe immigrants as especially crime-prone or as increasing aggregate crime rates. Moreover, this framing has increased in prevalence over time, as have narratives inaccurately describing undocumented immigration as a crime itself, while framing immigrants as victims of crime has declined significantly over the 1990–2013 period.”
Exploring the Contextual Determinants of Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants and Criminal Activity and their Spillover Policy Implications
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2010.00601.x
“Results show that whites living in states where immigrant populations have increased most dramatically and in states with lower socioeconomic characteristics are more likely to associate immigration with increased criminal activity. Whites’ attitudes toward immigration-induced crime has important spillover implications to the larger public policy making process as whites who view immigrants as a cause of criminal activity are more likely to support tougher criminal sentencing and the death penalty.”
Despite there being no relationship between immigration and ‘crimes waves,’ as John Oliver recently pointed out, mentions of ‘migrant crime’ in the news spiked from 28 mentions from Nov 26-Dec 26 to 317 from Jan 28-Feb 28, source GDELT Television Explorer, internet archive.
As a result, Americans citing 'migrant crime' as a main issue of concern went from 20% in Jan to 28% in Feb, according to a gallup poll titled, "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?"
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/03/30/the-myth-of-the-criminal-immigrant
“As of 2017, according to Gallup polls, almost half of Americans agreed that immigrants make crime worse. But is it true that immigration drives crime? Many studies have shown that it does not. Immigrant populations in the United States have been growing fast for decades now. Crime in the same period, however, has moved in the opposite direction, with the national rate of violent crime today well below what it was in 1980.”
For further reading on these issues see the selected resources below. And keep a look out for “Migrant Justice in the age of removal,” coming in 2025.
Ackleson, Jason. 2005. “Constructing security on the U.S.–Mexico border.” Political Geography, Volume 24, Issue 2, Pages 165-184.
Gruberg, Sharita. 2015. “How For-Profit Companies Are Driving Immigration Detention Policies. Center for American Progress. 2015.
Gruberg, Sharita. 2016. “How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Can End Its Reliance on Private Prisons” Center for American Progress. 2016
Jones, Reece. 2021. White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall. Boston: Beacon Press.
Chacón, Justin Akers and Mike Davis. 2006. No One Is Illegal. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Painter, Nell Irvin. 2010. The History of White People. New York: W.W. Norton.