The Ideational Stigmatization of Immigration Detainees, Their Advocates, Captors, and Their Apologists in the Commentary Section of U.S. Newspapers
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Executive Discretion on Immigration during the Obama and Trump Years
1.2. Immigration Debates as Stigma Contests
1.3. Methods and Data
2. Results
2.1. Criticism of Detention
2.1.1. Cruel Captors and Innocent Detainees
Lately there have been images on the evening news of gendarmes in ICE jackets knocking on doors, terrified children crying, portly Latin men in handcuffs, Border Patrol agents hydrating migrants in dirty ball caps before escorting them away for processing—the stuff of nightmares for the vulnerable.
…undocumented immigrants, in the great majority of cases, are not criminals. They are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. This is America. Basic human rights matter, regardless of a person’s immigration status. In a 19-page report, inspectors found that at the four detention facilities targeted, some detainees had been denied prompt medical care, and been served food that had not been properly handled.
Those of us who have seen the sites where families are detained and work directly with children and families who have gone through the system know what’s at stake. The children we work with call the Border Patrol processing stations for migrants stopped at the border “iceboxes” (hieleras) and “dog kennels” (perreras). “I was wet from crossing the river and it was so cold I thought I would die”, one child said. Another told us: “The lights were kept on day and night. I became disoriented and didn’t know how long I had been there”. A third said: “I was separated from my older sister. She is the closest person in my life. I couldn’t stop crying until I saw her again a few days later”
These are not places where we should want more children to go. … A 9-year-old girl sought to return to breast feeding. Children clung to their mothers’ legs, fearful of letting them out of sight. Many had night terrors, were depressed or acted out. They could sense their mothers’ worry.
2.1.2. Captors Condemned as Racist or Xenophobic
As they wait for a legalization bill, they are suffering under unjust laws, corrupt policing and a detention and deportation system that routinely suppresses their rights. American citizens who are Hispanic, and are all too frequently victims of racially-driven sweeps, are also suffering. Mr. Obama and his Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, must do much more to curb those excesses.
The first quote refers to “racially-driven sweeps” and the second connects the “zero tolerance” policy to nativism. Detention, then, is not simply unjust it is discriminatory. Condemnations of racism and xenophobia are made but not to the extent of those made against his predecessor, and in fact are less prominent than the condemnations of cruelty or denials of injury. Authors used this type of aligning action in 43 articles (17 before and 26 after Trump’s inauguration).Its no secret that Donald Trump views immigrants with disdain. He has called Mexicans “rapists” and referred to immigrants as “animals”. The Trump Administration has embraced nativist dog whistles from day one. Nowhere is this clearer than in the shameful “zero tolerance” policy pursued by President Trump, which has separated families, locked kids in facilities and traumatized innocent children.(Lee 2018)
2.1.3. Detention Advocates Condemned as Dishonest or Foolish
Beyond being cruel, Trump is condemned as dishonest. This type of alignment draws on partisan polarization. In this quote, the author claims Trump is lying about the role of Democrats. It thus has the effect of calling up longstanding cleavages between the left and the right. In 32 articles (6 before Trump’s inauguration and 26 after) members of the executive branch, including ICE and the President are cast as being liars or fools.In a barefaced lie, [Trump] has repeatedly blamed Democrats for his incredible cruel policy of separating children from their parents at the border. The president told reporters that he hates “to see the separation of parents and children”, but that “Democrats forced the law upon our nation”.
2.2. Defense of Detention
Denial of Injury and Denial of Detainees’ Victimhood
On the other hand, many who are coming across seeking asylum do not qualify for it. When they get their hearings, only 20 percent win the right to stay in the United States because they’d face persecution in their home countries. Many come for traditional economic reasons. The murder rate in El Salvador has fallen in half since 2015, while the number of asylum seekers has skyrocketed.
Our county officials are upset and say the detention of illegal immigrants by ICE undermines immigrants’ trust in our laws. Are they not the criminals? This is going to put fear in our community? Maybe only for those who are here illegally. It may make the rest of us safer.
The Democrats … are obsessed with depicting [Trump’s] immigration policies as either cruel or ineffective, depending on the context. Meanwhile Hispanic law enforcement officers, Border Patrol officials, and activists have done everything in their power to shed light on the trafficking issue and its correlation to the influx of illegal immigrants, especially among Hispanic women and children.
Democrats agreed, as Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., put it in a 2009 speech, that “illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple”. Since Mr. Trump took office, Democrats have become the party of illegal immigration. They want to decriminalize illegal border crossings, cut ICE detention beds to force the agency to release illegal immigrants and then refuse to enforce lawful deportation orders.
This condemnation aligns the captors with the law and Democrats and asylum seekers with criminality. The author doubts the legitimacy of the asylum seekers victimhood by adding the qualifier “purported” and claims that they will “disappear” suggesting ulterior motives. This threat is assisted by Democrats who have “inserted provisions.”Congressional Democrats have reportedly inserted provisions making it easier for purported asylum seekers arriving with children to disappear and augment the illegal population.
2.3. Elite vs. Nonelite Condemnation
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is disappearing immigrants. ICE must immediately end its dark practice of hiding people in off the radar facilities.
This author argues that elites (“politicians”) have sided with unvirtuous “illegal immigrants” instead of nonelite “veterans.” These politicians have presumed agency and responsibility to help certain nonelites.If the politicians would care about our veterans half as much as they care about illegal immigrant children, maybe the veteran suicide rate would not be so tragic. It disgusts me how liberal politicians lobby and fight for illegal immigrants in order to gain future votes while our veterans are stranded in a VA hospital waiting for treatment.
This shameful system is driven by a search for profits, not sensible, humane policies. Americans should not stand for it.
That’s a stain not just on the presidency, but on the nation.
These quotes indirectly criticize nonelites by attributing blame to the entire nation—“America should not stand for it,” “a stain not just on the presidency, but on the nation,” “only a mean or rich country.” By referencing all of U.S. society, the authors include nonelites in the condemnation. The do not, however, directly recognize that there is a faction of nonelites who support the policy. These alignments, found in 33 articles (15 before Trump and 18 after), imply that nonelites supporters of detention are immoral by leveling critique against the entire nation or claiming that decent people oppose the practice.Only a mean or rich country spends millions each day detaining nonviolent immigrants, sweeping up the elderly, families, and even children in their net. Instead of treating every noncitizen who has made a mistake the same, we should return to—and learn from—past practices that are fair, cost-effective, and humane. In short, it’s time to be smart on immigration.
Despite growing outrage over family separation and detention, many whites do not like undocumented immigrants and believe they have very little in common with them. And while it is tempting to blame President Donald Trump, these feelings existed before he was even a candidate.
Egged on by a hardcore, xenophobic base, Trump has officially embraced cruelty as the national immigration policy.
One reason for these atrocities is that the Trump administration sees cruelty both as a policy tool and as a political strategy: Vicious treatment of refugees might deter future asylum-seekers, and in any case it helps rev up the racist base.
This author acknowledges the critics of Trump’s family separation policy but dismisses them as a fanatical fringe of the U.S. population. Because these critics may or may not include elites, we find that nonelites are being indirectly condemned in this statement. This type of alignment was only found in three articles.Perhaps no Trump policy has provoked more emotional reaction than the practice of separating illegal border crossers from the children they brought with them to the United States. There’s no need to recount the number of times critics have called the president a Nazi, or a fascist, or just plain cruel. … That, of course, will not satisfy the critics, and legal challenges are sure to follow. But if a new poll is correct, it appears the Trump administration, after an enormously damaging few weeks, has ended up squarely on the side of the majority of American voters.
2.4. Constructing Detainees before Trump and after Trump
3. Discussion and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
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Silva, E.O.; Flynn, M.B. The Ideational Stigmatization of Immigration Detainees, Their Advocates, Captors, and Their Apologists in the Commentary Section of U.S. Newspapers. Genealogy 2020, 4, 102. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4040102
Silva EO, Flynn MB. The Ideational Stigmatization of Immigration Detainees, Their Advocates, Captors, and Their Apologists in the Commentary Section of U.S. Newspapers. Genealogy. 2020; 4(4):102. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4040102
Chicago/Turabian StyleSilva, Eric O., and Matthew B. Flynn. 2020. "The Ideational Stigmatization of Immigration Detainees, Their Advocates, Captors, and Their Apologists in the Commentary Section of U.S. Newspapers" Genealogy 4, no. 4: 102. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4040102