The Immigrant as Bogeyman: Examining Donald Trump and the Right’s Anti-immigrant,Anti-PC Rhetoric

Abstract

This article examines the rhetoric used by President Trump and his administration with respect to immigrants and immigration policy. We argue that Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric can be understood as (1) a response against current norms associated with political correctness, which include a heightened sensitivity to racially offensive language, xenophobia, and social injustice, and (2) a rejection of the tendency to subordinate patriotism, U.S. sovereignty, and national interests to a neoliberal political economy that emphasizes “globalism” and prioritizes “free trade” over the interests of working Americans. In order to highlight how much of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is developed as a response to political correctness and the neoliberal tendency toward globalism, we employ the concept of “collective action frames” to suggest that Trump’s (and much of the Right’s) efforts to legitimize their strict agenda on immigration relies on frames related to (1) crime and the threat immigrants pose to Americans’ safety, (2) the notion that immigrants and free trade deals lower Americans’ wages and compromise their job security, and (3) the claim that Democrats and other liberals are driven by a politically correct orthodoxy that hurts American workers by being “weak on immigration” and supportive of “open borders.” The article concludes with recommendations for fighting the normalization of scapegoating immigrants.

Keywords

Donald Trump immigrants rhetoric political correctness neoliberalism collective action frames

Personal Reflexive Statement

Luigi Esposito, PhD has been engaged in activist scholarship throughout his career. He has written about various topics, including gun violence, post-civil rights racism, the link between neoliberalism and mental health, and the attack on political correctness as an ideological tactic to rationalize overt bigotry. As a an immigrant and long-time resident of a predominantly Latinx city (Miami) where over half of the population is foreign born, Dr. Esposito has been deeply concerned about the current nativism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has characterized the Trump presidency, and sees first-hand the detrimental effect this has on immigrants. Currently, Dr. Esposito is a Board Member of No More Tears, a non-profit organization that focuses on helping victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, many of whom are immigrants.

Laura Finley, PhD is an engaged scholar who serves her community in a number of capacities. She has authored, co-authored, or edited 28 books and 34 journal articles, and is a public sociologist via her work with PeaceVoice and the Good Men Project. Her scholarship focuses on social justice and human rights, including domestic violence, sexual violence, and racism and on remedies to these issues. As a resident of Miami, Dr. Finley is very aware of the challenges faced by immigrants, and particularly during the Trump presidency. Having worked with many peace, justice and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and No More Tears, Dr. Finley is devoted to using her knowledge to help others, including many immigrants.

The election of Donald Trump was, in large part, a logical response to the fears and anxieties that were fostered among much of the population for decades. Fear that Democrats would takeaway their guns, fear that immigrants were taking their jobs or going to rape and murder their wives and daughters, and fear that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals were threatening the alleged sanctity of marriage, among other things, elicited deep concerns among many voters. This was especially the case among white males in more rural areas. But these fears resulted in the political ascendency of a highly unlikely candidate. The rhetoric espoused by Trump and his administration has been problematic in many ways, particularly as it pertains to immigrants. The ways that the Trump administration demonizes and denigrates immigrants serve to influence not only public opinion but also public policy. At the same time, the administration has, like none before it, used rhetorical tactics to dismiss the concerns of the Left, namely by referring to these concerns as “politically correct” or denouncing the individuals who espouse them as “social justice warriors,” “open border” zealots, or “unpatriotic.” Such commentary serves to minimize very real concerns and shuts down both conversation and actual action.

In order to highlight how much of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is developed as a response to political correctness and the neoliberal tendency toward “globalism,” we employ the concept of “collective action frames.” Within the literature on social movements, collective action frames pertain to the values, beliefs, and meanings of reality that social movement actors develop as a way to garner support for their political and social goals. Although collective action frames are typically associated with social movements, they can also be employed by people already in positions of power, including presidents and those working for them, to “frame” social reality in a way that gives coherence to their messages and agenda. We contend that collective action frames related to (1) crime and the threat immigrants pose to Americans’ safety, (2) the notion that immigrants and free trade deals lower Americans’ wages and compromise their job security, and (3) the claim that Democrats and other liberals are driven by a politically correct orthodoxy that hurts American workers by being “weak on immigration” and supportive of “open borders” have been employed by Trump and his administration to gather support for their political agenda as it pertains to immigration.

History and Present State of U.S. Nativism

The anti-immigrant sentiments discernible in the United States today, and commonly expressed by President Trump, cannot be fully understood without taking into account the history of nativism in this country. In his seminal work, Strangers in the Land, Higham (1955:4) defines nativism as an “intense opposition to an internal minority on the ground of its foreign connections.” Nativism, according to Higham (1999:384) “always divided insiders, who belonged to the nation, from outsiders, who were not part of it.” Similarly, Lippard (2011:593) argues that while racism and nativism are often intertwined, the latter is distinct in that it is linked to “nationalist sentiment and separates natives from foreigners.” In many respects, nativism also presupposes xenophobia (a fear of immigrants). Within the context of the United States, therefore, nativism is based on fears of a foreign “other” who is “un-American” and perceived by the native-born population to threaten the safety and well-being of “real” Americans.

As has been well-documented, the targets of nativist enmity have varied throughout much of U.S. history (e.g., Feagin and Feagin 2008). During the 1820–1850s, Germans and Irish Catholics arriving to the United States were seen as dangerous “others.” During this time, there was concern among White Anglo-Saxon Protestants about the clannishness of Germans, their slowness in learning the English language, while Catholic immigrants (in particular Irish Catholics) were viewed as a threat to American democracy and liberty, as they associated with a centralized and autocratic church headed by a person (i.e., the Pope) that most Catholics regarded as holy and infallible (e.g., Knoble 1986). From the 1870–1880s, the most popular target of American nativists became Chinese immigrants who were often portrayed as opium addicted fiends who were a threat to white Americans’ jobs, salaries, and way of life. These anti-Chinese sentiments led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first law preventing a specific ethnic group for immigrating to the United States (e.g., Gyory 1998).

By the 1890–1920s, nativists targeted Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who many regarded as culturally inferior people whose traditions, temperaments, and worldviews were incompatible with American society (Feagin and Feagin 2008). These concerns led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which, among other things, mandated strict quotas on the number of Southern and Eastern Europeans allowed to enter the United States. During the middle part of the 20th century, particularly in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing, the “Americanness” of Japanese Americans also became suspect, as people of Japanese descent living in the United States were seen as potentially traitorous and threatening to U.S. national security. As is well known, this anti-Japanese nativism spurred President Roosevelt to sign executive Order 9066 in 1942, which led to the relocation and detention of over 110,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1946, all of whom, it was later determined, posed no threat to the national security of the United States.

From the latter part of the 20th century onward, the targets of nativists in the United States have predominantly been Muslims and Latin Americans. The attacks on September 11, 2001, led to a rise in what is often referred to as “Islamophobia” among large segments of the U.S. population. Muslims living in the United States (both foreign nationals and American citizens) have been constantly and consistently cast as un-American and, as with previous groups, regarded by many as a potential threat to the United States. This post-9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment was bolstered by the Patriot Act of 2001, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal agencies employed to legitimize the targeting of Muslim communities for intensive surveillance. The same fear of Muslims as a potential “threat” to the United States led President Trump to sign executive Order 13769, which mandated a so-called travel ban that targets seven countries, five of which are predominantly Muslim countries. In a 5-4 decision, this ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2018. One of the dissenting justices, Sonia Sotomayor, wrote that the majority decision “repeats tragic mistakes of the past” and “tells members of minority religions” in the United States that “they are outsiders” (Barnes and Marimow 2018).

In recent years, nativist sentiments directed against people coming from Latin American countries, particularly from Mexico and countries in Central America, have been particularly virulent. Since at least the 1990s, studies find that large numbers of native-born Americans believe that the influx of immigrants, particularly Hispanics, leads to job loss, higher unemployment rates, lower wages, and poor working conditions in selected industries. These immigrants supposedly also place a great deal of strain on various resources and services including housing, public schools, and welfare programs (e.g., Borjas 2003; Espendale and Hempstead 1996; see also Lippard 2011). Another major concern among anti-Hispanic nativists has to do with the idea that Hispanics fail to learn the English language and are a threat to America’s national identity. Although research shows that Hispanic groups speak English as their first language by the second generation (Portes and Rumbaut 1996), authors like Buchanan and Huntington have written about how Hispanic immigrants are a threat to American unity and identity. As stated by Huntington (2009):

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.

In his book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, Buchanan (2006) addresses how undocumented Mexican immigrants entering the United States are coming to “reconquer” the Western territories that were once part of Mexico. Much like Huntington, Buchanan claims that unless some drastic measures are taken to curb the flow of Hispanic/Mexican migration into the country, the United States will devolve into chaos and lose its identity.

These anti-Hispanic nativist fears are what, for years, have inspired vigilante and white nationalist groups (e.g., “the Minutemen”) to patrol the Southern border and protect U.S. sovereignty against so-called “invaders.” These same fears have also led to nativist legislation, such as California’s Proposition 187, which was passed in 1994 to ban undocumented immigrants from receiving social benefits such as health care and public education, and senate bill 1070 in Arizona, which was passed in 2010 and makes it a crime for “aliens” to be in Arizona without carrying documentation.

Nativist, anti-Hispanic sentiments are also what spurred President Trump to promise his predominantly white base to “build a wall” at the Southern border, condemn sanctuary cities, deport all illegal immigrants, rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, institute a “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in family separations at the border, and protect Americans from rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and other criminals entering the country illegally. Clearly, Trump’s efforts to generate anti-immigrant fears as a way to gain votes and political capital are a continuation of a long history of U.S. nativism. Currently, efforts to pushback against nativism/anti-immigrant sentiments are typically met with accusations of compromising the safety and well-being of Americans in the name of being “politically correct” and opposing a type of globalization/globalism associated with neoliberalism that presumably benefits foreigners while undermining the interests of Americans.

Trump, Political Correctness, and Immigration

Donald Trump’s ascendency to the presidency seems inexplicable, yet is actually quite easy to explain. Following a popular black democratic president in Barack Obama and a formidable yet somewhat despised candidate in Hillary Clinton, Trump seemed to offer just what a lot of middle America thought it wanted: A no-nonsense outsider who would “drain the swamp” and “tell it like it is.” A big part of Trump’s appeal as a “maverick” or “outsider” was very clearly connected to his blatant and unapologetic rejection of political correctness. He and his election team repeatedly reminded voters that he would be a new breed who, when necessary, would jettison politeness and restore the sort of “strength” that had, at one point, made the rest of the world respect America. In short, Trump emphasized he would be the “anti-political correctness (PC) president.”

Far from fortuitous, Trump’s anti-political correctness position was very calculated, as polls leading up to the 2016 election showed that hostility against political correctness was salient among large segments of the U.S. electorate. An October 2015 poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University found that 68 percent of Americans believed that political correctness is a “big problem” in society (Trump Taints America’s Views on Political Correctness 2015), while a Quinnipiac University Poll found that 51 percent of respondents believed political correctness is a bigger problem that prejudice (Hate Winning, as Clinton-Trump Race Too Close to Call 2016), and a Pew Poll found that 59 percent of Americans felt that “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use” (Fingerhut 2016). Survey data published by Clearthinking.org found that, with the exception of party affiliation, believing “there is too much political correctness in the country” was the most reliable predictor of whether or not voters intended to support Trump (Strongest Predictors of Voting for Trump 2017). Furthermore, the idea that political correctness is the enemy of democracy has only worsened since the election. The 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, published by the CATO institute, found that 71 percent of Americans say, “political correctness has silenced discussions society needs to have,” and 58 percent claim they “have political views they are afraid to share” (Ekins 2017). More recently still, a poll published in The Atlantic found that 80 percent of respondents believe “political correctness is a problem in our country,” including 74 percent of those who are ages 24–29 and 79 percent of under age 24 (Mounk 2018).

Trump and other critics assert that an emphasis on political correctness has created a social–political climate in which care and concern about equality, social justice, diversity, and human rights has taken precedence over nature, logic, and national interests. These PC “social justice warriors” and “liberal snowflakes” are, according to the Right, ridiculously playing up victim status, declining to take responsibility for their own actions, and discarding honest criticism and debate in the name of tolerance and politeness. Author Nick Adams (2016) notes the perceived threat political correctness poses to American society:

Nothing is more anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-truth, and anti-reality than political correctness. It is the noose around America’s neck, growing tighter each day. From identity politics and secularism to the all-powerful welfare state and the war against national identity, every problem in American is compounded by this suffocating regime of thought control (P. xviii).

Donald Trump, an abrasive reality star with zero political experience, was well equipped to play the game of calling PC on anyone who disagreed with him. On the campaign trail, he quickly demonstrated that he would not respond to criticism with decorum but rather with insults, as evidenced by his repeated condescending nicknames for his opponents, his insults against the press, and his routine and, largely incorrect, claims on Twitter and other social media that he was a victim of a mass conspiracy that needed undermining.

While there is no clear history of the concept of political correctness, many accounts trace the earliest recorded use of the term political correctness to a U.S. Supreme Court case titled Chisholm v. State of Georgia (1973), in which the Court ruled on whether citizens have the right to sue states (Wilson 1995). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that references to “the United States” are “not politically correct” and should therefore be replaced by “the people of the United States,” implying that the American people, not the states or federal government, held the true authority of the United States (e.g., Wilson 1995). The mid-20th century saw a different interpretation, as leftists used it to critique the orthodoxy of the Communist Party and how anything that strayed from party doctrine was not “politically correct.” By the 1970s, the New Left, feminists, and progressives advocating for social change used the term “politically correct” to deride other so-called leftists who were, in their eyes, too self-righteous (Hall 1994; Perry 1992).

The political Right appropriated the concept in the 1980s, giving it its pejorative meaning. Weigel (2016) noted that, “instead of a phrase leftists used to check dogmatic tendencies within their movement, ‘political correctness’ became a talking point for neoconservatives [who] said that PC constituted a leftwing political program that was seizing control of American universities and cultural institutions.”

The publication of Allan Bloom’s bestselling book titled The Closing of the American Mind in 1987 furthered the criticism of the Left’s political correctness. Subsequent books, including Kimball’s (1990) Tenured Radicals and D’Souza’s (1991) Illiberal Education, further promoted the claim that U.S. institutions, particularly higher education, had been hijacked by left-wing, politically correct radicals who encouraged a “victim mentality” and sought to undermine Western culture in the name of multiculturalism, equity, and social justice.

In a short time, this sort of liberal-progressive puritanism presumably infiltrated U.S. politics and led to repressive discursive norms that forbid anything “offensive.” Thus, for example, in their efforts to avoid language and messages that might offend immigrants or racial/ethnic minorities, supporters of PC typically ignore, distort, condone, or rationalize the many problems immigrants from certain parts of the world bring, particularly those who come from the Southern border. According to many critics of PC, expressing concerns about how these immigrants might bring disease, lack cultural capital, put a strain on resources or social services, or be unwilling or unable to quickly learn English or assimilate into the dominant culture is met with accusations of being a racist or xenophobe. Political correctness, in this sense, is often seen as an ideology that discourages honest criticism and discussion, much to the peril of honest, hardworking Americans. Within the political realm, Trump emerged as a savior who would liberate the country from this alleged “thought prison” by directly confronting political correctness in an earnest effort to “make America great again.” Central to this effort, of course, was the need to stop the “infestation” (a word used by Trump himself) of illegal immigrants into the country. This is also required challenging the “open border” policies of globalist politicians (including Hillary Clinton), which were often disguised behind the notion of “free trade” and “globalization.”

Trump, Neoliberalism, and America First

Widely regarded as the dominant political–economic paradigm of our time, neoliberalism demands a religious-like faith in the power of the unregulated market to promote freedom and prosperity. Developed in opposition to Keynesianism and similar theories calling for a regulated economy, neoliberalism is associated with Friedrich Hayek, Milton Freedom, and other luminaries associated with the Mont Pellerin Society and, subsequently, the Chicago School of economics (Harvey 2005). Rooted in classical liberal principles and neoclassical economics, neoliberalism emphasizes the individual as a rational actor driven toward competition and constantly making calculations on what will serve their best interests. In fact, within neoliberal market societies, human actions and institutional practices are guided primarily by “market rationality”—for example, evaluating the costs and rewards of all decisions, actions, and objectives according to a “calculus of profitability” and “returns on one’s investments” (Brown 2015). Promoting market rationality involves making the government as small as possible, opening national borders to the free flow of capital and goods, and implementing policies of deregulation and privatization in an effort to maximize competition and individual freedom.

While Trump’s emphasis on deregulation and privatization are certainly in line with neoliberal ideology, his critical stance on immigration and so-called free trade agreements also stands in sharp contrast to the neoliberal tendency toward anti-protectionism, open borders, and unfettered competition. Indeed, throughout his short political career, Trump has veered away from the neoliberal free market orthodoxy espoused by both mainstream Republicans and Democrats since at least the 1980s. Trump has abandoned neoliberal free trade agreement like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which was supported by Hillary Clinton), has made efforts to “renegotiate” North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in ways that presumably protect American workers, and has imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, all in effort to “declare economic independence again” (as quoted in Jacobs 2016). At the heart of Trump’s seemingly anti-free trade stance lies an effort to champion a form of civic nationalism that is captured by the phrase “America first.”

Although often associated with cutting foreign spending, strengthening homeland security, and further building the U.S. military, Trump’s “America first” agenda is also one that prioritizes the interests of native-born Americans over anyone else. In effect, a rejection of neoliberal globalization is, in large measure, an effort to advance a new form of nativism that is dressed as benevolent protectionism. In an era when American workers have been dealing with stagnant wages, a rising cost of living, a loss of job security, and an erosion of the country’s safety nets, Trump has promised not only to curb the outsourcing of American jobs but to seal U.S. national borders in an effort to cut the cheap labor (illegal immigrants) from coming in.

Not surprisingly, millions of Americans have been receptive to this position. Indeed, Trump is celebrated by his base as a patriot who challenges a globalist (neoliberal) elite that threaten American sovereignty and the interest of the American people. For example, in June 2016, Trump suggested that the problems faced by American workers is “the consequence of a leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism…. Our politicians took away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families” (as quoted by Jacob 2016). In effect, under the neoliberal “free trade” system, this globalist elite class is capitalizing on the cheap labor of foreigners, both those residing outside the United States and those crossing the border. The irony, of course, is that while Trump uses the language of patriotism and nationalism to convey the idea that he is a protector of American workers, he has also followed tactics straight out of the neoliberal playbook by cutting taxes and public expenditures, all of which disproportionately benefit the upper classes. Yet within the context of emphasizing the dangers of globalism and “free trade,” Trump has repeatedly told his right-wing nationalist base that immigrants are a burden to the economy, take jobs away from Americans, bring wages down, and are basically a threat to the safety and well-being of native-born Americans.

Collective Action Frames

The notion of collective action frames are a useful analytical tool for addressing how Trump’s and the Right’s anti-immigrant agenda and messages are propagated. Various scholars have emphasized how social movement actors and other political agents are involved in establishing a “schemata of interpretation” that might help orient their collective identity, objectives, and activities. Within the literature on social movements, these are often referred to as “collective action frames” (Benford and Snow 2000). Through the development of these frames (an activity denoted by the verb framing), political actors actively give meaning to the world, identify the sources of their problems, develop ways to manage their grievances, and articulate their vision.

Understanding this framing process involves delving into the production of mobilizing ideas and meanings that legitimize the aims of a social movement or specific political agenda (Bakker 2011; Benford and Snow 2000). In the case of Trump and those on the Right who call for “sealing our borders” and taking a hard position on immigration, a series of frames have been developed as a critical response to basic assumptions and versions of social reality associated with political correctness and neoliberal globalization that are presumably oppositional to the interests and well-being of the United States and native-born Americans. These frames include (1) immigrants (especially those coming from the Southern border) are a threat to the safety of Americans, (2) immigrants takeaway American jobs and lower wages, and (3) those on the Left are too politically correct, weak on immigration, and undermine the interest of Americans. While Trump and other members of his administration personally employ these frames on a routine basis, the media (including social media) disseminates these frames widely. In their book Framing Immigrants: News Coverage, Public Opinion and Policy, Haynes, Merolla, and Karthick Ramakrishnan (2016) note that negative framing in media and social media more strongly influences public support for harsh immigration policies. The same dynamic is discernible with Trump and others on the Right who have shaped public opinions/perceptions by employing the aforementioned frames in their efforts to legitimize what many critics argue are very harsh immigration policies.

Immigrants Pose a Threat to the Safety of Americans

One frame that is at the core of Trump’s and, more generally, the Right’s anti-immigrant messaging is the notion that immigrants crossing the Southern border pose a threat to the safety of Americans. In fact, as is well known, Trump launched his presidential campaign by talking about the dangers that Mexican immigrants pose to the United States. In a June 2015 campaign speech, Trump said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” (Klein and Liptak 2018).

Also during his presidential campaign, Trump met routinely with the family members of Americans killed by undocumented Hispanic immigrants and showcased them (and stories of their murdered loved ones) at his rallies and press conferences. Throughout, Trump sent out the message that people crossing the border illegally commit crimes against Americans and are therefore a threat to national security. This despite the fact that undocumented immigrants commit a miniscule percentage of violent crime in the United States (Flagg 2018).

The framing of immigrants as criminals has continued well into his presidency. In fact, in June 2018, at a press conference with background signs that read “secure our borders” and “protect our communities,” Trump stated that “sixty three thousand Americans have been killed since 9/11” a number that has no basis in reality (Bump 2018). Trump also continuously framed the infamous MS13 Mara Salvatrucha gang as a major “foreign” threat to the safety of Americans, despite the fact that MS13 originated in Los Angeles was a consequence of the U.S. government’s “dirty war” in El Salvador during the 1980s and spread to Central America via deportations (e.g., Klein and Lipstak 2018). Trump has also routinely invoked imagery that frames immigrants as subhuman by referring to them as “animals” and akin to an “infestation” (Stacqualursi 2018). In addition, Trump has consistently referred to the Southern border as “dangerous,” as if to invoke images of some menacing land that lies beyond the realm of civilization. He has also referred to immigrants crossing the Southern border as a horde bringing “death and destruction” to America (Rogers 2018). At the time of this writing, images of a so-called caravan of immigrants making their way from Central America has prompted Trump to suggest that there are not only criminals but potential “middle eastern” terrorists among them, although there is no evidence for that. Yet any opposition to this presumed “honesty” is dismissed as too “politically correct.” In his 2016 Republican National Convention Speech, Trump warned that there are nearly 180,000 immigrants with criminal records, and that in order to protect the safety of our citizens, “we cannot afford to be so politically correct.”

As is well known, Trump’s favorite method of communicating “directly” with his base is through the use of Twitter. He uses this medium as a way to by-pass the presumably politically correct “fake news” that he claims is “an enemy of the American people” and is out to undermine him. A review of Trump’s Twitter archive (http://trumptwitterarchive.com) from the time he announced his presidential candidacy (June 2015) to today (October 2018) reveals the routine or occasional use of terms that are employed to criminalize immigrants (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Trump’s Tweets on Immigrants.

Term/Phrase	Number of Times Terms Appears in Trump’s Tweets from June 2015 to October 2018
Criminal aliens	10
Criminal immigrants	3
Crimes committed by immigrants	5
Dangerous Southern border	4
MS13 and illegal border crossing	7
Infestation and immigrants	5

Despite Trump’s and the Right’s claims to the contrary, there is clear evidence to suggest that immigrants commit far less crime that the native-born population. In fact, while the immigrant population increased by 116 percent from 1980to 2016, the rate of violent crime fell by 36 percent during the same period (see Flag 2018). Also, according to widely cited research by Harvard Sociologist, Robert Sampson, far from posing a more likely threat to the safety of Americans, new immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crime than their native-born counterparts (Sampson 2008).

Important to note is that framing immigrants as dangerous criminals encourages scapegoating. This is a tactic that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented in some of the world’s most abusive governments. HRW interviewed hundreds of people who were separated from American families and deported and found none to pose any credible threat to commit crime, violent, or otherwise. Yet Trump uses the frame of immigrants as a “threat” to Americans to portray himself as a resolute leader who will prioritize the safety of Americans over all “politically correct” demands for tolerance and civility, as these demands are part of an “open border” agenda. The criminalization of immigrants also reinforces the nationalist “America first” rhetoric that is anathema to the process of globalization encouraged by neoliberalism, a process that, as previously stated, Trump and the Right have often associated with the Clintons and their “globalist” program. In a June 22, 2016, tweet, Trump opposed Hillary Clinton’s penchant for free trade and globalization by saying “Hillary says things can’t change. I say they have to change. It’s a choice between Americanism and her corrupt globalism.” Clearly, the “corrupt globalism” in question is one that is antithetical to national borders, invites “criminal aliens” into the country, and undermines that interest of the American people. This all bolsters Trump’s insistence for “building a wall” as a way to keep Americans from harm’s way against criminal “others.”

Immigrants and Poorly Negotiated Trade Deals Takeaway Jobs and Lower Wages

Another central frame that Trump and those working for him have employed during his presidential campaign and subsequent presidency is the idea that the presumed influx of immigrants coming into the country, couple of with poorly negotiated free trade deals, have taken jobs away from Americans, lowered wages, and compromised Americans’ standard of living. During his presidential campaign, in a 14-point economic manifesto, Trump argued that: “decades of disastrous trade and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class…[and] this influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high and makes it difficult for poor and working Americans…to earn a middle-class wage” (quoted in Kudlow and Moore 2015). In fact, according to Factba.se, an organization that archives all of Trump’s interviews, press conferences, and speeches, from 2016 to 2018, Trump has expressed at least 15 times how poor trade deals and weak immigration policies have lowered wages for Americans. The following are some examples:

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. (July 2016)

If we’re going to make our immigration system work, then we have to be prepared to talk honestly and without fear about these important and very sensitive issues. For instance, we have to listen to the concerns that working people, our forgotten working people, have over the record pace of immigration and its impact on their jobs, wages, housing, schools, tax bills and general living conditions.” (August 2016)

Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration…will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages and help struggling families…enter the middle class. (February 2017)

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. (January 2018)

The main problem with Trump’s (and much of the Right’s) claims that immigrants lower wages is that they are not supported by the data. Instead, studies show that immigrants and native-born American tend to compete for different low-skilled jobs (e.g., Enchautegi 2016) and immigrants dominate the labor market in some of the riskier, most uncomfortable jobs (e.g., Orrenius and Zavodny 2009). These findings are further corroborated in a study published by the Hamilton Project, which concludes that immigrants do not generally compete for the same jobs as U.S.-born workers and, on average, actually raise the overall standard of living of American workers by boosting wages and lowering prices (Greenstone and Looney 2010). More problematic than immigrants, according to many experts, is the corporate flight overseas, weakened unions, and multiple recessions.

Trump has also emphasized how free trade agreements such as NAFTA have been disastrous to American workers. As if drawing from the critiques against neoliberalism by the Left, Trump has argued that NAFTA and similar free trade agreements lead to massive outsourcing of American jobs to cheaper labor markets, all of which is antithetical to his “America first” agenda. This is also why Trump opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as he claims it would have been against the interests of American businesses and American workers. Yet while Trump is correct to suggest that these neoliberal free trade agreements have, in fact, led to job loss in the United States and prioritize corporate interests over the interests of American workers, Trump’s criticisms of free trade agreements like NAFTA are framed as part of an “open border” agenda that places images of “foreigners” at the center of why these agreements are problematic. In fact, since 2016, Trump has conflated NAFTA with “open border” or the need to “build the wall” at least nine times in his tweets (Trump Tweeter Archive). Here again, Trump conjures images of foreign workers as the main culprits for stagnant/lower wages and job insecurity among millions of American workers (a condition he claims his presidency is dramatically minimizing). Those who criticize this position are often dismissed by the Right as “unpatriotic” and blinded by political correctness or what Nowrastech (2016) has termed “patriotically correct.” According to Nowrastreh (2016), as much as the Right complains about the liberal obsession with political correctness and the tendency among liberals to shut down dialogue,

the Right has its own version of shutting down dialogue on difficult issues—it simply labels someone and their position as unpatriotic. If one doesn’t believe that ‘illegals’ are a problem then one must be in favor of shamnesty and for porous borders that will, allegedly, destroy national [as well as job] security.

Liberals/Democrats Are Weak on Immigration and Undermine U.S. Interests

Perhaps one of Trump’s most powerful collective action frames in his efforts to legitimize draconian-like immigrant policies has been to demonize democrats and liberals who oppose his immigration agenda as “open border” zealots. In fact, since 2015, Trump has accused “democrats,” “liberals,” “the liberal left,” and Hillary Clinton of advocating for “open borders” at least 23 times in his Tweets (Trump Twitter Archive). Similarly, Trump has declared that “political correctness” is the reason for crime, terrorism, and the lack of comprehensive immigration reform 11 times since winning the election (Trump Twitter Archive). In fact, early on in his presidential campaign, it became clear that political correctness was going to be used by Trump and his administration as an ideological linchpin on which to denounce what much of his base regarded as the liberal orthodoxy that stifles discourse, empowers presumably corrupt, “open border” politicians (including former President Obama and Hillary Clinton), and undermines the greatness (and safety) of America. As an example, soon after a Muslim gunman murdered 49 people at a gay club in Orlando in June 2016, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of espousing a “catastrophic immigration policy” that is inviting “radical Islam into the country” and went on to say that unlike people like Clinton and Obama, who “have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety.…I refuse to be politically correct.”

Trump uses the frame that Democrats are soft on immigration routinely. For instance, in an August 31, 2018, speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump used the term “open border, crime-infested Democrats.” Also, in a July 2018, interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump accused democrats of wanting to get rid of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of their agenda to push for open borders (Tucker Carlson, President Trump Full Interview 2018).

Similarly, in an October 6, 2018, speech in Topeka, Kansas, Trump again referred to undocumented immigrants as animals and asserted that Democrats are “fighting to give welfare and free health care to illegal aliens paid for by you, the American taxpayer.” This refrain that Democrats want to spend people’s hard-earned money to provide health care and other services to undocumented individuals was one that the President made many times in September and October 2018.

Trump and others on the Right have also consistently vilified “soft” politicians who support sanctuary cities and protect undocumented immigrants, claiming they threaten public safety by protecting criminals who should be deported. As one example, Trump publicly shamed Democrat Elizabeth “Libby” Schaaf, Mayor of Oakland, California, for warning the residents of her city of an imminent ICE crackdown. Trump responded by saying

What the Mayor of Oakland did is a disgrace…they had probably 1,000 people gotten [sic]. Ready to be taken off the street. Eighty-five percent were criminals. She went out and warned them all. Scatter. So instead of taking in 1,000, they took a fraction of that. (quoted in Chiacu 2018)

Further, at various recent speeches, Trump has been telling voters to oust Democrats who support and protect sanctuary cities and/or voted against stiffer penalties for illegal immigrants. Among the democrats that Trump has targeted are Senators Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, and Bob Casey of Montana. According to the president, “Politicians who put criminal aliens before American citizens should be voted out of office immediately” (quoted in Mayfield 2018). Here again, Trump frames politicians who do not support his immigration policies not simply as political opponents with different perspectives but as people who harbor and support “criminal aliens” and represent a threat to the American people.

Conclusion: Fighting the Normalization of Immigrant Scapegoating

Clearly, there is a long history of nativism in the United States that encourages the scapegoating of immigrants for all sorts of societal problems (whether real or imagined). Within the context of Trump’s presidency, a particularly blatant form of nativism has been resurrected that violates central norms of political discourse—norms that have been in place since at least the 1960s and seek to avoid bigotry, encourage decency, and protect human dignity. In many respects, Trump’s presidency and anti-immigrant rhetoric represents a shift in what some refer to as the “Overton window.” First developed in the mid-1990s by Joe Overton of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Overton window, also known as the “window of discourse,” is a theory which posits that there is a range (or window) of ideas and policies that the public will accept at any given moment (Lehman 2012). The scale ranges from “popular” to “unthinkable.” Trump and his administration have sought to challenge and expand current boundaries of acceptable discourse or shift the so-called Overton window, so that associating immigrants with rapists and drugs dealers, separating parents from their children as a tool to “secure” the border, deporting millions of peaceful, hardworking immigrants already living in the United States, and vilifying political opponents as “open border zealots” who prioritize “criminal aliens” over native born Americans, are rethought as acceptable rather than unthinkable. Central to shifting the boundaries of acceptable discourse has been the employment of the collective action frames discussed in this article.

The revitalization of nativism and what makes a significant number of Americans receptive to anti-immigrant messages reflects wider structural factors that define the current moment. These include (1) the ravages of a neoliberal economy (including an emphasis on policies of deregulation) that, since the 1980s, have stagnated wages, made employment increasingly precarious, eroded the country’s social safety nets, and weakened labor unions; (2) demographic shifts whereby whites will no longer be the majority in the United States by 2050; and (3) a perceived “invasion” of foreigners entering the country illegally, particularly from the Southern border, that pose a threat to honest, hardworking Americans. These factors often converge to motivate native-born Americans to scapegoat immigrants for their problems, and Trump has emerged as what might be referred to as scapegoater in chief.

Particularly noteworthy for purposes of this discussion is that political correctness has become an ideological tool on which to defend the scapegoating of immigrants and to legitimize the degradation and derision of anyone who challenges blatantly nativist sentiments, language, and policies. Often in the name of free speech, common sense, patriotism, and self-preservation, those who fight for human decency and ethical immigration policies are dismissed by critics of political correctness as open border, globalist zealots with an agenda to further marginalize and disempower native-born Americans and compromise the United States’ standing as a first world superpower.

Fortunately, most Americans do not believe all that the president is claiming about immigrants. For instance, a Quinnipiac poll from February 2018 found that 72 percent of Americans do not believe that “undocumented immigrants commit more crime than American citizens do” and 63 percent do not believe that “undocumented immigrants take jobs away” (Samuels 2018). Thus, it remains important to be optimistic that more people can and will be convinced that the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies that follow can be replaced with more egalitarian and thoughtful language and actions. This possibility, however, requires efforts to develop and deploy alternative collective action frames that denounce and delegitimize efforts to normalize nativism and xenophobia in the name of common sense and repudiating political correctness. Immigrant advocates need to disarm contemporary nativists by, among other measures, reappropriating the term political correctness as something that stands for decency rather than corruption, equitable dialogue rather than speech repression, and a concrete safeguard to human integrity rather than a corrupt agenda toward promoting thought control. Instead of abandoning the struggle for social justice in the name of allowing “free speech,” counter frames must be encouraged—in schools, churches, civic organization, social media, and so on—that emphasize the current need for “social justice warriors!” Rather than succumbing to the messages advanced by anti-PC’ers that those who oppose injustice are overly sensitive “snowflakes” who give credence to a fruitless “victim culture,” efforts to denounce language and policies that degrade/dehumanize fellow human beings must be intensified! More than ever, warnings about and the presumed dangers of immigration and the nefarious influence of politicians seeking to encourage globalism as part of their “open border” agenda must be denounced as myths. More must also be done to counter the current frame, popularized by Trump himself, that anything deviating from a nativist “America first” agenda is “fake news.” These are necessary steps in challenging current attempts to normalize bigotry and cruelty within the context of immigration discourse and policy.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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