IMMIGRANT VS IMMIGRATION DEBATES

My dissertation (in progress) argues that neoliberalism dehumanizes immigrants and facilitates immigrant threat narratives--depictions of immigrants as a single group that are a threat to society's scarce resources. The implication is that discussions about immigration (the act) turn into discussions about an "inferior" group of people "immigrants".

Ironically, neoliberalism has two forms: the neoclassical economic theory form and the political form. This can be seen in Phillip McMichael's assertion that neoliberalism is the political form of neoclassical economic theory.

The neoclassical economic theory form of neoliberalism should favor immigrants and immigration. Immigration is the free flow of labor and provides opportunities to increase specialization and trade. However, the political form of neoliberalism does not seem to favor immigrants or immigration like might be expected. Donald Trump is the most recent reminder of this fact. To go one step further, it is really the way his anti-immigrant rhetoric does not seem to hurt his popular support. It seems that those on the political right that favor many free market tenants are often those most outspoken about "cracking down on immigration" or even insulting and dehumanizing immigrants.

While the mechanism behind this are as complex as society itself, there are a few major points that help to clarify this apparent irony. Immigrants make a perfect scapegoat. Neoliberalism and free market über alles are promoted by the promises of "trickle-down" economics. However, since the 1970s, this promise has failed many people in one country after another. In Latin America, the implementation of neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s led to the "Lost Decade" of the 1990s there. Neoliberalism has benefited the rich, but the rest find themselves falling further behind. The results of neoliberalism have proven to be increasing inequality, poverty and decreasing hope and quality of democracy wherever it has been implemented (Oliver 2011 working paper). So, how do the elite keep neoliberalism afloat? Even after the Great Recession of 2007/8 there was talk that it would prove to be the demise of neoliberalism, but it has continued (Moyo 2011) in spite of its failed promises. The vulnerable groups of society can make a perfect scapegoat for these failed promises. A qualitative review of 132 Lexis Nexus articles supports that assertion (not discussed here). What if the blame for growing inequality and poverty can be shifted from neoliberalism (and the elite that espouse it) to someone else, like immigrants? Given this theory, it is no surprise to hear right-wing politicians repeatedly engage in blaming immigrants for society's problems by portraying them as a drain on all of society's resources. 

If that is true, then perhaps these politicians are somewhat justified...However, scientific evidence does not bear out any of these assertions. Immigrants may cause a small wage decrease (less than $100 PER YEAR) for the most uneducated native-born Americans, but most other "facts" about immigrants as a drain on public resources are simply politicized rather than factual. (I have written a literature summary on this and Doug Massey has also provided a short work debunking some of the myths about immigrants). In this way, immigration is like global warming in the sense that the scientific evidence is not publicly excepted by the political right (here). 

Additionally, many prominent politicians on the political right know that immigration flows to the United States are likely to continue as they have for hundreds of years even if they use immigrants as a scapegoat. In other words, they can get the best of both worlds: immigrants coming and filling undesirable jobs as a flexible workforce, and a scapegoat for the failed promises of neoliberalism. 

An article in The Irish Times (May 5, 2007) makes the point in describing the way Sarkozy shifted toward the political far right to gain support:

During the campaign, he has tacked towards the far-right agenda on national identity and immigration, playing down his earlier enthusiasm to address minority exclusion issues.
Sarkozy is so hated in the banlieues (the parts of suburban Paris and elsewhere peopled mainly by immigrants) that he dared not go there...("Final Countdown for France and its Politics of Change")

Therefore, there is a sort of ironic relationship between the political right and immigrants. While many of the high-profile politicians of the right are inclined toward pro-immigrant positions, they are often driven to anti-immigrant stances by the voice of the people. Here is a second reason why prominent politicians on the political right might take an anti-immigrant stance--because it is popular. But why is it popular? Some might say that high profile politicians set the tone for this anti-immigration sentiment. The implication of that, is that anti-immigrant sentiment may be mutually reinforced in the relationship between politicians and their constituencies.

However, one of the major points of my dissertation is that immigrant threat narratives--promoting the socio-political construction of "immigrants" as a separate group of people that are a threat to society's resources--dehumanizes immigrants and makes them victims of discrimination and hate. This is similar to what happens with race or other socially constructed categorizations.

The one caveat to this is that powerful anti-immigrant storytelling can lead to powerful counter-storytelling by those looking to defend the human rights of immigrants. In short, a when a certain group of people are attacked in society, there may also be a counter movement among the supporters of those being attacked.

The main hypothesis of this study is:

H1: Discussions about "immigrants" (an "inferior" group of people) will be more negative than discussions about "immigration" (an act) because discussions about people become personal.

This hypothesis was tested by collecting 6,154 posts from different media: 246 Facebook posts, 2 posts from Forums, 309 Google hits, 238 Images/Videos, 498 articles from News/Blogs, 5 results from Reddit, 84 from Tumblr, and 4,772 tweets (from Twitter). The articles were collected through Trackur. Articles are collected through Trackur using search terms. For "immigrant" and "immigration", the 3,000 most recent articles were collected (October 5, 2015-January 11, 2016 in the case of the "immigrant" search and January 10-11, 2016 for the "immigration" search. NB: The effects seen below are actually slightly stronger when using the same date range--though that is not shown here).

Table 1. Mode of Sentiment by Type of Media

Table 1 shows CHI2 analysis of the average (mode) of sentiment for each type of media based on the search term. ("Neoliberalism" is included here as well as it is used for reference in further analysis used in the dissertation).

It is clear from this table that articles about immigrants vs. immigration are much more likely to be negative in a given type of media. To be more technical: more types of media are predominantly negative when the discussion is about "immigrants" vs. immigration. The results of the analysis are statistically significant at p=.000.

This supports the hypothesis that discussions about immigrants are more likely to be negative than discussions about immigration. However, it is not the whole story. Here is another figure:

Table 2. Percent of Sentiment Type by Search Term

This repackages the question in a little bit of a new way. Table 2 shows CHI2 analysis of the percentage of negative, neutral and positive articles/units within each category. Notice that, while "immigrant" articles are more likely to be negative than "immigration" articles, they are also more likely to be positive. These results are also statistically significant at p=.000.

When taking both of these figures together, the hypothesis H1 is supported, but with an asterisk: It is also associated with more positivity. This may be a result of counter-storytelling, in which immigrants and their supporters are also making more of an effort to present immigrants in a positive light. However, the 9% of positive articles compared to 42% negative do not leave much hope at present.

The conclusion is that "immigrant" discussions are more polarizing that "immigration" discussions, and overall, they are more negative. This provides support for the hypothesis that immigrant threat narratives shift debates about immigration out of more neutral and objective territory and into more personal and contested territory.