Racist conspiracy theories about immigrants have dominated the election cycle in recent weeks. High-profile Republicans have doubled down on unfounded rumors about black and brown immigrants, playing on fears that immigrants are responsible for rising crime in American cities.
During last week’s presidential debate, Donald Trump repeated an unsubstantiated claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets. “In Springfield, they eat the dogs. The people that came in. They eat the cats. They eat — they eat the pets of the people that live there,” the Republican candidate said.
And in response to a question about the high cost of living, Trump referred to viral rumors that members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were taking over an apartment complex in Colorado. “Look at Aurora, Colorado. They’re taking over cities. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently.”
Both statements are completely false.
Experts say the spread of such disinformation reinforces existing xenophobic beliefs in the American psyche as a means of political gain. “It’s so dangerous when people with a platform are repeating these very fabricated rumors,” said Gladis Ibarra, co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “This is a big part of a larger coordinated strategy to continue to demonize our immigrant neighbors. It undermines the values of our nation and historically what people have said this nation stands for.”
Misinformation (false information spread unknowingly) and disinformation (false information intended to mislead) are being shared widely on social media platforms, despite a push for fact-checking and accuracy since the 2016 presidential election. The phenomenon of false news is still occurring at alarming rates because people’s online algorithms are largely driven by their political biases, according to Jeffrey Layne Blevins, a journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati.
“[The algorithm] “It’s just about keeping users engaged,” Blevins said, referring to metrics like how long someone spends watching or sharing content to their feed. “And what resonates with people the most? Things that make them angry or infuriate them.”
Blevins added that right-wing figures share disinformation in the hopes of “outraging people on the political right,” especially during an election cycle. Such content is accepted as truth by people online who already share right-wing beliefs. “It creates a kind of echo chamber,” he said. “When public figures who share your political beliefs post this kind of content, people are more likely to accept it at face value.”
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Republicans at all levels of government have linked immigrants to violent crime, including drug trafficking and assault. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump claimed that Mexicans crossing the U.S. southern border were “rapists,” “brought drugs, brought crime.” He began building a wall along the border — among other anti-immigrant measures — to “crush big bags of drugs [from being thrown] During this election cycle, Trump has said that undocumented immigrants are “animals” who “poison the blood of our country,” despite the fact that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
The demonization of immigrants is a repeated move by lawmakers to secure votes, said Germán Cadenas, an associate professor at Rutgers University who specializes in the psychology of immigration. “Immigration is really not as divisive as some politicians try to make it seem,” he said, given that 64% of Americans believe immigration is good for the country. “It’s a tactic that has historically been used to mobilize voters who feel threatened.”
Cadenas said that for centuries, politicians have built policies around the stereotype that immigrants are a “threat” to American identity and security. Anti-immigration laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924 were among the first to restrict U.S. immigration based on nationality. The Chinese Exclusion Act came largely after high-ranking labor union members warned of a “Chinese invasion” that would steal white, American jobs. Similarly, U.S. senators advised their fellow lawmakers to “shut the door” on immigrants because a migrating population would “infringe upon the reserve and virgin resources” of the U.S. before the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, and states like Arizona passed laws allowing local law enforcement to arrest anyone they believed was in the country without papers. Arizona Republicans called the incoming undocumented immigrants an “invasion that must be stopped” and a “national security threat,” a political tactic to drum up support for the controversial bill.
Politicians also try to create a voting bloc by pushing anti-immigrant policies. “Historically, these stereotypes, these lies, [then] is used to mobilize voters to elect policymakers who will create anti-immigration laws and policies.”
While most Americans have a positive view of immigration, Cadenas said, “Racism and xenophobia are deeply ingrained in our society and our psychology.” A study by Cadenas and Elizabeth Kiehne found that white American adults are most susceptible to the core stereotype of Latino immigrants as a threat.
“The anti-immigrant rhetoric is less about persuasion than it is about reinforcing and reinforcing beliefs that already exist,” Cadenas said. “It takes a lot of work to unlearn these problematic beliefs and biases.”
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Misinformation about immigrants has consequences, Cadenas and Ibarra said. “Across the country, a number of states have ‘anti-immigrant’ policies,” Cadenas said, meaning those states are passing laws that make life harder for immigrants.
“A small minority of people who are threatened by immigration elect policymakers who make policies that are negative for immigrants,” he added. “These policies trickle down to housing. They trickle down to the way that local authorities deal with immigration. These policies trickle down to health care and the kinds of access to health and mental health that immigrants have.”
In Aurora, Venezuelan residents of the aforementioned apartment complex say they feel unsafe after rumors of a gang takeover and fear being seen as criminals.
Springfield has received more than 33 bomb threats since Trump’s comments during the debate. City Hall has been evacuated, along with several local schools. Hospitals in Springfield are also on high alert, and Haitian immigrants say they’ve received multiple threats.
“People who work hard and contribute to our communities are not the danger,” Ibarra said. “The danger is all these violent ideologies that are being fueled by the people who are repeating these lies, by the people who are going on social media and on TV and repeating them.”
