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Episode 184: Nativism in Media (Part I) — How Dehumanization and Militarization Manufactured a “Border Crisis”

Added 2023-07-12 15:39:56 +0000 UTC

"What one photo from the border tells us about the evolving migrant crisis," The Washington Post reveals. "The U.S. immigration crisis through the eyes of a border town mayor," reports Boston's NPR station. "Everyone can now agree – the US has a border crisis," proclaims CNN.

There's a seemingly endless stream of warnings in news media that the US is being met with a "crisis" at the US-Mexico border. This crisis, according to the press—whether it’s called a "border crisis," "migrant crisis," "immigration crisis," or some variant thereof—is the movement of people away from countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, toward the United States. This phenomenon will supposedly distort, strain, and burden the US labor market, social services, housing, and economy in general.

But, contrary to media framings, the movement of people isn't per se a "crisis." Nothing is inherently harmful about the movement of human beings from one place to another. The "crisis," instead, is the militarized and inhumane response to the movement of surplus and unwanted populations; it's US policy toward the people, especially from the Global South, who seek refuge here. It's the history of imperialist violence, the existence and enforcement of the border, and the deflection of responsibility away from the US, and onto the dehumanized and demonized asylum seekers.

On this episode, part one of a three-part episode on immigration, we explore media's World War Z-conjuring "border crisis" narrative, looking at how it obscures the US’s role in creating the conditions so many people have no choice but to flee; how it reinforces false notions about immigrants and asylum seekers; and how it retcons the wealthiest, most powerful country in world history into an innocent victim, too fragile to support the people in dire need of escaping the wanton violence that very country helped unleash.

Our guest is Boston University assistant professor Dr. Heba Gowayed.

Guest

Dr. Heba Gowayed is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Her writing about the lives of people who migrate across borders, and the unequal and often violent institutions they face has appeared in academic journals including Gender & Society and Ethnic & Racial Studies, as well as outlets like Slate, Al Jazeera English, and Teen Vogue. She is author of the book Refuge: How The State Shapes Human Potential, published by Princeton University Press in 2022.

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Show Notes

The Existence of Human Beings Is Not a “Crisis”—Our Nativist Response Is

Adam Johnson | September 21, 2021 | The Column

‘Border Crisis’ Means Migrants Coming—Not Migrants Dying

Julie Hollar | June 2, 2023 | FAIR

The US must free itself of political delusions about the border

Michelle Garcia | November 4, 2022 | CNN

Debunking the dangerous myth that refugees are an economic burden in Lebanon

Cathrine Brun and Ali Fakih | September 26, 2022 | The New Humanitarian

Border Crises: Five decades of ordinary bipartisan anti-immigrant politics

Daniel Denvir | December 13, 2021 | n+1

Why Mobility Across Borders Is A Human Right

Parag Khanna | November 22, 2021 | Noema Magazine

The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics

Mari Uyehara | August 9, 2021 | The Nation

What So Many People Are Getting Wrong About the “Border Crisis”

Fernanda Echavarri | March 27, 2021 | Mother Jones

For Sunday Shows, Border Is ‘Political Crisis,’ Not Humanitarian Emergency

Julie Hollar | March 25, 2021 | FAIR

There Is No ‘Border Crisis’

Ruth Conniff | March 25, 2021 | The Progressive

How a Stephen Miller Fox News Appearance Launched the “Border Crisis”

Ben Mathis-Lilley | March 24, 2021 | Slate

Media ‘Border Crisis’ Threatens Immigration Reform

David L. Wilson | March 24, 2021 | FAIR

That Crisis At The Border? Unethical Reporting

Alex Yellin | March 22, 2021 | Human Rights First

Right-wing media is stoking anti-immigration hysteria again. The rest of the media needs to fight back this time.

Dan Froomkin | February 26, 2021 | Press Watch

The Nativist Tradition

Joel Suarez | Summer 2020 | Dissent

How Democrats Let the Right Win on Immigration

Alex Amend | April 28, 2020 | The New Republic

Migration: EU praises Greece as 'shield' after Turkey opens border

Jennifer Rankin | March 3, 2020 | The Guardian

Stanford scholar examines the spike in unauthorized Mexican migration in the 1970s and how it came about

Alex Shashkevich | May 14, 2018 | Stanford News Service

Trump’s anti-immigration playbook was written 100 years ago. In Boston.

Neil Swidey | January 2017 | The Boston Globe

The Forgotten Interventions

Julian Emiridge | January 12, 2017 | Jacobin

Phantom Menace: The Psychology Behind America's Immigration Hysteria

John B. Judis | February 13, 2008 | The New Republic

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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