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Making Monsters: How Media Encourage Hatred of Immigrants Lara-Nour Walton ([link removed])


NYT: The Story Behind DeSantis’s Migrant Flights to Martha’s Vineyard

The New York Times (10/2/22 ([link removed]) ) described the effort to trick migrants into flying to Martha's Vineyard as an attempt to "force Democrats to deal with the migrants whom they profess a desire to welcome."

“Yahtzee!! We’re full,” wrote Florida state operative Perla Huerta ([link removed]) , once she had tricked enough desperate migrants to fill two Martha’s Vineyard–bound planes (CNN, 11/15/22 ([link removed]) ). In the days leading up to her celebratory text, the recently discharged Army counterintelligence agent scoured San Antonio gas stations, churches and McDonald’s parking lots for asylum seekers who would believe her when she promised them employment and three months' free rent in Boston (Boston Globe, 9/19/22 ([link removed]) ). All they would have to do is get on a plane.

By September 12, 2022, she had convinced nearly 50 ([link removed]) migrants, mostly Venezuelans, to depart Texas. On September 14, they landed unheralded, not in Boston, but in Martha’s Vineyard—an affluent island community largely closed for the season, and wholly unprepared to accommodate the aircrafts' precious cargo.

Immigration attorney Rachel Self told the MV Times (9/15/22 ([link removed]) ) that

not only did those responsible for this stunt know that there was no housing and no employment awaiting the migrants, they also very intentionally chose not to call ahead, to any single office or authority on Martha’s Vineyard.... Ensuring that no help awaited the migrants at all was the entire point.


** 'Begging for more diversity'
------------------------------------------------------------

Huerta had lied. And it was a sadistic, labor-intensive and costly lie, designed to overwhelm "sanctuary destinations ([link removed]) " (The Hill, 9/16/22 ([link removed]) ) and thereby draw attention to the politician orchestrating and bankrolling the airlift: Florida governor ([link removed]) and GOP presidential hopeful ([link removed]) Ron DeSantis (CNN, 9/17/22 ([link removed]) ).
Fox: The Most Democratic Towns Are the Least Diverse

Fox host Tucker Carlson (7/26/22 ([link removed]) ) proposed using refugees as props in a stunt to embarrass liberals.

But, as Matthew Gertz of Media Matters (9/15/22 ([link removed]) ) tweeted, “When GOPers do depraved stuff, it's worth looking for the Fox host who suggested it.” It appears that DeSantis was taking ([link removed]) notes ([link removed]) when former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson declared on primetime TV (Fox, 7/26/22 ([link removed]) ):

Next stop on the equity train has got to be Martha’s Vineyard.... They are begging for more diversity. Why not send migrants there in huge numbers? Let’s start with 300,000 and move up from there.

Characterizing human beings as pests that ought to be dumped onto others is regular programming at Fox, which unapologetically peddles white supremacist conspiracy theories (CounterSpin, 5/27/22 ([link removed]) ), promotes alarmist anti-immigration rhetoric (Media Matters, 5/23/23 ([link removed]) ) and portrays migrants as boogeymen (Washington Post, 12/18/18 ([link removed]) ).

However, this is far from a Fox-exclusive phenomenon. Established media—both conservative and centrist alike—treat the subject of immigration with stunning callousness. FAIR's Janine Jackson (CounterSpin, 8/2/23 ([link removed]) ) noted:

Reporting evinces nowadays an implicit acceptance of the goal of border “management,” keeping things “under control,” keeping immigrants’ efforts to enter from “surging.” The way we’re to understand that the US is doing things right is if there are just fewer people trying to enter.

The problem is not simply that media buy into sensationalist accounts of immigration. When the news amplifies anti-immigration hysteria, asylum seekers are drained of their humanity. Their mere presence constitutes a “crisis ([link removed]) ,” their desperation ([link removed]) amounts to an existential threat, their movement must be sanctioned ([link removed]) and scrutinized ([link removed]) . In the public imagination, they are no better than monsters.

As long as the US continues to manufacture ([link removed]) conditions ripe for mass migration in Latin America, news readers must come to grips with how today’s journalism coaxes Americans into hating migrants. Only then can we begin to treat immigration rightfully—as a natural part of human history, to be celebrated ([link removed].) rather than feared.


** The monster playbook
------------------------------------------------------------
Making Monsters, by David Livingstone Smith

Making Monsters attempts to explain "why dehumanizing others transforms them into something so terrifying that they must be destroyed" (Harvard University Press, 2021).

Turning migrants into monsters is simple. According to philosopher David Livingstone Smith ([link removed]) in his book Making Monsters ([link removed]) : The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, all it takes is a combination of a physical and cognitive threat. Grizzly bears, he noted, may gnash and claw at us: They are physically threatening. But they are not monsters, because they are part of the natural order.

A singing rose, on the other hand, challenges our conception of normalcy: It is metaphysically threatening. But it is not a monster, because it cannot hurt us.

It is only when the physically and cognitively threatening intersect (think zombies, werewolves or Chucky dolls) that a monster is born. And this is precisely what media do to migrants.

In their 2018 research ([link removed]) , Emily Farris and Heather Silber Mohamed analyzed ten years' worth of immigration coverage in Newsweek, Time and US News & World Report. They revealed that media have a “general tendency to frame immigrants in a negative light, consistent with a 'threat' narrative but inconsistent with actual immigrant demographics.”

For example, while the vast majority of migrants—77%—are in the country legally (Pew, 8/20/20 ([link removed]) ), the study found that news media overwhelmingly display photos of asylum seekers crossing the Southern border or cooped up in detention facilities, thus implying criminality (Washington Post, 7/27/18 ([link removed]) ).

In another instance, despite women accounting for a little over half—51%—of US migration (Migration Policy Institute, 3/14/23 ([link removed]) ), national magazines play up the “bad hombres ([link removed]) ” archetype by picturing Latino migrant men at far greater rates than their female counterparts. This disparity fortifies the “physical threat” mirage, as the perception of Black and brown men in the US is often blighted by the assumption that they are intrinsically dangerous (Atlantic, 1/5/15 ([link removed]) ).

This stereotyping is enforced when right-wing outlets work tirelessly to prove a nonexistent correlation between violence and heightened immigration. The trend is latent in the conservative media pandemonium surrounding the MS-13 ([link removed]) gang:
* "The Illegal Immigration/Crime Link Politicians Are Not Discussing" (Daily Caller, 2/2/23 ([link removed]) )
* "How Many MS-13 Gangsters Is Biden Settling in the US?" (Washington Examiner, 3/2/23 ([link removed]) )
* "Grieving Mother Demands 'Secure' Border, Vows to be Daughter's 'Voice' After Alleged MS-13 Member Murdered Her" (Fox News, 5/23/23 ([link removed]) )
* "Killer MS-13 Gangsters Are Being Bused Into Our Communities as ‘Minors’" (New York Post, 6/6/23 ([link removed]) )

In reality, the most recent estimates suggest that less than 1% of US gang membership can be attributed to MS-13 (Washington Post, 12/7/18 ([link removed]) ), and native-born US citizens are over twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as undocumented immigrants (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 12/7/20 ([link removed]) ). Despite that, these headlines represent only a drop in the right-wing fearmongering ocean (Media Matters, 6/30/21 ([link removed]) , 4/29/21 ([link removed]) , 8/6/19
([link removed]) ).

Media scare tactics are not without ([link removed]) consequence. According to a 2021 study ([link removed]) , the preponderance of negative immigration news has engendered outgroup hostility toward asylum seekers and ingroup favoritism toward the native-born. It's no wonder that many Americans ([link removed]) have begun to believe it when the likes of CNN (Media Matters, 12/20/22 ([link removed]) ), the New York Times (FAIR.org, 5/24/21 ([link removed]) ) and Time (FAIR.org, 6/2/23 ([link removed]) ) deem the arrival of migrants a “border crisis.”

But the real crisis at hand is the wanton depiction of migrants as physical threats.


** Infections and invasions
------------------------------------------------------------
Newsmax: Biden's Open Borders Mean Disease at Your Doorstep

Newsmax (4/19/23 ([link removed]) ) is not known for its subtle approach.

Anti-migrant animus is now part of the zeitgeist ([link removed]) , and Donald Trump is the poster child ([link removed]) . “Everything’s coming across the border: the illegals, the cars, the whole thing. It’s like a big mess. Blah. It’s like vomit,” he said in a characteristic 2015 speech (HuffPost, 8/25/16 ([link removed]) ). Trump likening asylum seekers to inanimate objects—like “vomit” and “cars”—is indicative ([link removed]) of the dehumanizing language that afflicts contemporary immigration discourse.

Media follow suit, discussing migrants as if they were devoid of human qualities. Valeria Luiselli (Literary Hub, 3/16/17 ([link removed].) ) observed that “some papers and webpages announce the arrival of undocumented children like a biblical plague. Beware the locusts!” Fox News’ Todd Starnes (Media Matters, 8/7/12 ([link removed]) ) once actually compared undocumented immigrants to “locusts.”

A scholarly investigation (Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Winter/08 ([link removed]) ) into media representations of migrants asserted that there are two principal metaphors:

When the nation is conceived as a physical body, immigrants are presented either as an infectious disease or as a physical burden. When the nation is conceived as a house, immigrants are represented as criminals, invaders, or dangerous and destructive flood waters.

Heavy-handed right-wing media are more likely to employ the “disease,” “burden” and “invasion” tropes when referring to migrants:
* "Medical Expert: Migrant Caravan Could Pose Public Health Threat" (Breitbart, 10/26/18 ([link removed]) )
* "Border Crisis: 'Invasion' at the Border" (Washington Examiner, 11/1/22 ([link removed]) )
* "Biden's Open Borders Mean Disease at Your Doorstep" (Newsmax, 4/19/23 ([link removed]) )
* "Migrant Crisis Sparked 'Unprecedented' Burden on NYC Shelters: City Hall Report" (New York Post, 1/31/23 ([link removed]) )


** Surges, floods and tidal waves
------------------------------------------------------------
CBS: "Tidal wave" of asylum seekers could head to New York City when Title 42 expires

CBS (5/8/23 ([link removed]) ) was one of many outlets that compared people seeking refuge from violence to a natural disaster.

But water metaphors abound in both conservative and centrist sources:
* "Immigration Crisis: Official: 'A Tsunami of People Crossing the Border'” (Fox News, 5/7/15 ([link removed]) )
* "A Migrant Surge Is Coming at the Border—and Biden Is Not Ready" (Washington Post, 4/1/22 ([link removed]) )
* “'Tidal Wave' of Asylum Seekers Could Head to New York City When Title 42 Expires" (CBS News, 5/8/23 ([link removed]) )
* "Migrants Bound for US Are Pouring Into Mexico While Biden Takes Victory Lap on Immigration Crackdown" (Daily Caller, 7/29/23 ([link removed]) )
* "New York's Flood of Migrants Puts New Pressure on Adams, Hochul Bond" (Politico, 8/21/23 ([link removed]) )

The water metaphors may be poetic, but they are insidious. In the 2014 fiscal year, the US saw a marked increase in unaccompanied Latin American minors hoping to reunite with their parents beyond the southern border (Vox, 10/10/14 ([link removed]) ). A linguistic analysis (Critical Discourse Studies, 8/12 ([link removed]) ) of New York Times and LA Times’ coverage of the child crossings found that “surge” appeared 91 times, “flood” 21 times and “wave” 14 times. The study remarked:

This water-based terminology establishes a metaphor that represents immigrants as floods. Consequently, these representations call upon ideologies of immigrants as natural disasters who should be dealt with in an inhumane fashion.

As Livingstone Smith wrote:

When we accept the view that some group of people are less than human, we have to overrule the evidence of our senses. At this point a problem arises, because even though a person has accepted that these others aren’t human, they can’t stop themselves from recognizing the other’s humanity. The belief that these people are human coexists in your brain with the belief that they’re subhuman.

The impossibility of migrants being simultaneously human and—as media have convinced ([link removed]) many—subhuman generates a cognitive threat. The dissonance between the two statuses challenges our conception of natural order. And, thus, Livingstone Smith’s monster-making formula is complete; the media has provoked within us an unjustified hatred for migrants by successfully casting them as monsters—an affront to our safety and sense of reality.

In describing the demonization of Black men in America in 1955, James Baldwin wrote: ([link removed]) “And the strain of denying the overwhelmingly undeniable forced Americans into rationalizations so fantastic that they approached the pathological.” Likewise, today it is virtually impossible for Americans to accept migrants as human when the news persistently degrades, brutalizes and distorts their image. But not to accept them as such is to deny them their “human reality," their "human weight and complexity.” It’s not a fictional caravan of monstrous migrants we should beware of; it’s the monster-makers in US media.


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