Immigration: Facts Vs. False Narratives

Anti-immigrant sentiment begins to gain increasing traction once again as we head into the midterm election season. Most political talking points surrounding the subject remain completely unfounded and misleading. Particularly, the discussion of the threat that immigrants pose to the American job market has been used with little foundation to inflame anti-immigrant narratives.

“They’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our manufacturing jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re killing us” – Donald Trump, 2015.

The topic of immigration has long been a subject of contention in contemporary politics, especially among Republicans. With Title 42 being rescinded at the end of May, Republicans are even more focused on the topic of immigration in their political rhetoric as a political weapon in the approaching midterms.

However, dissecting the common narratives among this party’s politicians and media outlets exposes their issues with immigration as often largely based in myth. These myths are so often used in political rhetoric that numerous blatantly inaccurate slogans have painted an edited image of immigrants and immigration in the U.S. This includes narratives that “immigrants are taking our jobs,” “they are bringing crime,” and that immigrants are harmful to the U.S. economy. To truly dissect this issue it would be most helpful to observe one of the most oft-preached myths concerning immigrants’ presence in the U.S. job market.

The common usage of the narrative that immigrants are taking jobs from native born Americans has persisted for years, with anti-immigration groups becoming much more mainstream over the past decade. Despite right-wing media outlets and prominent politicians leaning on this idea of immigrants “stealing” jobs as a prominent issue facing the nation, the reality plainly contradicts this sentiment.

Through analyzing U.S. employment data and through further research conducted by economists, it is shown that a net increase in jobs is brought with an increased presence of immigrants. Overall, immigrants bring in the creation of jobs more so than they take. Since a sustained growth in the workforce leads the economy to expand, this means that with less influx into the job market by immigrants, there is slower economic growth, and thus less jobs created overall.

Immigrants are also more likely to obtain jobs that most native-born Americans will not, with most immigrants taking jobs in farming, construction, and production. Thus, they are seen to be more of a “complement[ary]” figure in the labor market than a competitive one. All the while, immigrants partake in the purchase of goods and services from American companies, while also being likely to start their own businesses, particularly among undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are also shown to pay more in taxes than they recieve in other benefits. This leads to a steady overall growth of the economy, and thus the betterment of the American workforce.

However, these anti-immigrant rhetorics’ impacts are not just limited to hateful narratives, but legitimate policy consequences. With the transition of the Trump administration into the White House, many of these anti-immigration sentiments that had been perpetuated in his campaign started to take root in American immigration policy as well. This took place in “zero-tolerance” border policy, the detention of children at the U.S.-Mexico Border, limitations on the number of asylum seekers, and Title 42 with the presence of Covid-19. Meanwhile, out of all violent hate crimes, the FBI has reported an almost 6% increase in those directed towards the Hispanic population between 2015 and 2019.

These popular immigration myths that right-wing politicians and media use to rally up their co-partisans are not only inflammatory but also largely unfounded. Despite Biden’s tamper on anti-immigration policy, we are nevertheless seeing another surge of this anti-immigration sentiment among Republicans as they rally in preparation of the upcoming midterm elections.

Many of their talking points, however, are easily proved false. It is important to stop this spread of misinformation in our political rhetoric as we head into our next major elections. This means correcting those who mispeak on the issue, while consistently updating your own education on the state of immigration. With false narratives becoming a persistent aspect of social media, ensuring that you and those around you are properly informed is necessary for halting the spread of negative - and often hateful- misinformation.