The electoral campaigns in the United States, mainly the Republican ones, have placed immigration issues as a central theme in their discourse, with a practically “lukewarm” response from the Democrats.
“Invasion,” “illegals,” “criminals,” “open borders,” “insane” and other expressions have been used by former President Donald Trump and now by vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
The former president’s campaign Trump has made immigration a central theme of his electoral messageWhile Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is failing to defend the Biden administration’s achievements, argues academic Ernesto Castañeda, director of the Immigration Lab at American University.
“[Trump] He brought up immigration a couple of times and repeated a couple of dangerous ideas. [y] false, the first is that [la inmigración es] an invasion, [que] “People come armed to take over a territory by force, which is not at all what migrants do in the United States,” said the expert.
In addition to this, Trump and Vance’s message is also seeking to confront Latinos with black voterswarns academic Ernesto Castañeda, referring to the Republican’s statements last week to members of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), about how immigrants saw the US as taking “jobs” away from black people.
“[Expone la idea] that African Americans have very basic jobs and then migrants come and take away their basic jobs […] That is not the case, right now the African-American unemployment rate is very low,” he said.
He added that even the jobs that Latino immigrants take when they first arrive in the U.S. are lower-paying and considered “difficult,” such as in agriculture.
Castañeda acknowledged that it is “dangerous” that former President Trump and his followers use these arguments regarding immigration.
The danger of linking migration with crime
Trump and Vance have also linked immigration to crimeas he did in his acceptance speeches at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July.
Castañeda acknowledged that this discourse is also a risk, in addition to calling it a lie, since crime rates in the country have decreased in recent years.
“It is very important for the media, academics and others to talk about [la migración y el crimen] “They are quite independent phenomena and it is dangerous to unite them, because migrants do not commit more violent crimes or homicides than migrants who are already established or citizens born here,” he added. “When there is more immigration, there is a mathematical correlation in which crime rates go down. Many colleagues do not want to say that it is a cause, but they always go hand in hand.”
A triumph for the Harris campaign
One criticism of the Democratic campaign by Vice President Harris — and now vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz — is the failure to defend the immigration achievements of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Although Democrats were able to effectively correct that Vice President Harris was not in charge of border management or that she was a “border czar,” as Republicans claimed, but rather leading a project in Central America to address the causes of immigration, as this newspaper has reported.
“The American and international press have very clearly emphasized that although the Republicans did call her, she was not officially the czar of the border, nor of migration,” Castañeda said. “She had been charged by Biden with looking into the root issues of migration in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, especially when possible, and Mexico was an important partner and that was done with some success.”
The expert also celebrated that Harris would be willing to support immigration reformaccording to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York), in an interview with this newspaper.
Castañeda, however, considered that although Harris has tried to turn the immigration discourse against Trump, she has not successfully defended President Biden’s policies, such as facilitating the request for a Green Card for undocumented immigrants married to Americans.
The expert acknowledges that the campaigns will indeed increase the message on immigration issues, because Republicans are limited in their criticism of the Biden Administration.
“There is no substantial criticism that Trump can make against the Biden-Harris Administration [contra] “Their public policies on infrastructure and medicines, lowering the price of insulin medicine is very popular with everyone,” he recalled. “So, you cannot attack them successfully, so […] “Fear of migration will continue to be used.”
The expert expressed his confidence that the electorate would be able to distinguish between a lie and a serious issue.
Keep reading:
• Republicans fear Kamala Harris will be a serious challenge to Trump
• Democrat Veronica Escobar attacks Republicans: “They want to spread hatred against immigrants”
• Latino voices with Trump attack Biden on economy, immigration and “values”