How Misleading News Coverage About Immigration

The case of the U.S.-Mexico border and how the region and its peoples are portrayed by the news media historically and contemporarily provides a striking, although sobering, explanation for why and how, the fearmongering dialogue resulted of more than 62.9 million voters casting their ballots in favor of a candidate who seemed ready at every turn to insult a wide range of non-white ethnic groups, practically any non-conservative community, and, in some cases, entire nations. Donald Trump’s now infamous statement about Mexican’s “bringing drugs, crime and they’re rapists” was far from original, rather it reflected a long-standing practice of politicians using fear to gather votes and to sway public opinion. In this case, national networks played right into the then-candidate’s hands, by allowing the now-president to spout hateful statements with little effort to fact-check or put the assertions into context.

For example, in January 2019, three weeks into the government shutdown, major networks interrupt primetime regular planned programming to air an oval office address where Trump warned national televised audience of the 'security crisis at the southern border.” Over the course of his nine-minute speech, Trump painted a misleading picture of the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border (Rizzo, 2019). He threw out some numbers, exaggerated the public safety risks of immigration and repeated false claims regarding how to fund a border wall. Trump has relied on false and misleading claims to justify what has long been his signature political issue, and these major networks, along with social media have never stopped showing this type of rhetoric, which is lead to many dangerous accusations that have resulted in igniting fear and angry from American citizens, which is what Trump has always wanted to do.

Making claims that, U.S. border patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter the country every day, over the years, thousands of American’s are brutally killed by these immigrants who have illegally entered the country, and thousands of more lives will be lost if America does not act now. A popular one he always uses is, all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration because it strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages Also, of course claims about his “beloved wall” that is going to stop the trafficking of drugs and stop sex traffickers who are killing the children. (Gramlich & Gramlich, 2019). Those who agree with the wall being built believe that the crisis is, the U.S. is overwhelmed by illegal immigration. Their opinion is that people who come to live and work in the country, without official permission from the government, are taking advantage of the country's privileges and freedoms.

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place Order

Many feel the wall will prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the country as easily. Hainmueller, J., & Hopkins, D. J. (2013) examined in a research review, public attitudes towards immigration focuses on the attitudes of national majority groups about immigrants and other minority groups. It divides research into two broad areas of political economy, which looks at immigration’s economic impacts with reference to native-born citizens’ individual self-interests. The other area looks at political sociopsychological impacts in which these approaches emphasize the role of group-related attitudes and symbols in shaping immigration attitudes. Such approaches sometimes conceive of immigrant- native differences as similar to differences based on race, religion, perceived threats to national identity, and prejudice and stereotyping in combination with mass-media or local encounters. One study that was conducted identified anxiety as a mechanism connecting immigrant groups with concerns about immigration by manipulating the tone of a newspaper article as well as the featured immigrant group (white European or Latino). When participants were exposed to news that was about Latino immigrants and negative in tone, they responded with increased anxiety and became more concerned about immigration as a consequence. Anxious citizens disproportionately seek out and recall threatening information, a form of biased information processing that has the potential to raise anxiety levels further.

Another part of the review investigated what makes individual immigrants more or less likely to be supported for admission into a new county, participants were given a list of hypothetical immigrants who differed on nine randomly assigned characteristics, including their education, occupation, work experience, work plans, language skills, and country of origin. Even when participants had detailed information about an immigrant’s background, the preference for highly skilled immigrants continued within all respondents. The most preferred immigrant was one who is well educated, and in a high-status occupation, with plans to work, good English-speaking skills, and no prior unauthorized entries. These results illustrate the misconceptions of what immigration brings to America, and these beliefs that are constructed where U.S. citizens establish this thinking of who has the “right” to be in the country, and who does not, is dangerous. Trump talks about building the wall because he thinks about immigration in terms of symbols, and symbols are easy to understand and easy propaganda. “Build the Wall” and “Make America Great Again” are the key phrases he used to get elected, insinuating, that building the wall to keep “illegal aliens” out of our country, it will then be great again, this suggests that symbolic threats can be influential in shaping immigration attitudes.

As if individuals migrating to a country to survive is the only problem that America has. The most influential media platform with this administration, and also the most misleading for this immigration and southern border crisis is social media such as Facebook and Twitter because they have now become some of the most profitable providers of information. At the same time, the public and politicians can control these digital tools themselves allowing them to bypass traditional diplomatic channels and the news media, so that they can distribute their own messages for the world to see at all times and as quickly as they want (Bustamante, 2017). Trump uses Twitter to his advantage by spreading the false information to his base of supporters at all times of the day and night. His tweets have the ability to be seen by the whole world within seconds. With millions of followers who retweet his hateful messages. By using social media, he can then separate himself from the so-called “fake news” is any news that is not from Fox News other media allies of Trump.

However, it is true that not all news media reports misleading information about the crisis at the southern border because there is a crisis. The “crisis” at the border is not the numbers who are arriving but the system’s failure to respond in a humane, efficient, and orderly way in light of the government’s legal obligations and the number of migrants who are seeking protection (Frum, 2019). What not everyone seems to understand is, people migrate for the same reasons they always have, and that is to seek safety and opportunity for themselves and their children, laws and punishment won’t change that fundamental human survival instinct. And also, immigration is not a threat or a danger to our country or our values. At every point in our history new immigrants have been viewed with suspicion and hostility, and some political leaders have always tried to exploit and fuel those fears. But history also shows that in every case, new immigrants have fueled the American experience, have become part of the American people, have adopted English in every successive generation, and have contributed beyond measure to our intellectual, cultural, economic, and political life and success. (Gramlich & Gramlich, 2019).

References

1. Hainmueller, J., & Hopkins, D. J. (20134). Public Attitudes toward Immigration. SSRN Electronic Journal.
2. Bustamante, C. G., & Relly, J. E. (2017). Politics, Media, and the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Digital Journalism,2(4), 507-523. doi:10.1080/2167081
3. Gramlich, J., & Gramlich, J. (2019, January 16). How Americans see illegal immigration, the border wall and political compromise. Retrieved June 2019 from https://www.pewresearch.org
4. Frum, D. (2019, March 11). If Liberals Won't Enforce Borders, Fascists Will. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04
5. Rizzo, S. (2019, January 09). 11 false and misleading statements from Trump's border wall address. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/