With President Trump’s recent pejorative comments against illegal immigrants and an executive order banning six countries (Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iran) that have a Muslim majority population from entering the United States, it becomes increasingly transparent of the xenophobic characteristics of policy makers in Washington and their supporters. Often not, these comments and orders are backed up with fallacious comments that the Trump Administration advances as the truth.
In class on Wednesday, we discussed the New York Times article “Here’s the Reality About Illegal Immigrants in the United States.” The article was an interesting read that shed light on the actual facts based on real statistics and data about the current situation with illegal immigrants in America, and not the one purported by the Trump administration.
For example, the article elucidates that only 2.7% of all illegal immigrants have been convicted of a felony. In comparison, based on a Princeton University study, “about 8.6% of the adult population has a felony conviction.” Trump uses phrases such as “rapists” and “murderers” to describe illegal immigrants, but this is clearly not the situation. Furthermore, another interesting fact in the article explained the means of how most immigrants essentially became “illegal.” Rather than furtively crossing the Mexican-US border, most illegal immigrants are illegal due to just overstaying their visas.
The graph above shows that although crossing over the Mexican border may have been the largest cause of illegal immigration during the turn of the century, the most prevalent cause of illegal immigration today is overstaying one’s visa. I was personally most astonished by this fact because the Trump administration so vehemently asserts that a wall needs to be placed in the Mexico-US border to effectively stop illegal immigration. However, this graph shows that border security in the south has been improving and efforts should actually be placed in monitoring visa stays.
I think this article brings about many key points and it was great we got the chance to discuss its importance in class on Wednesday. Moving on, we should monitor more carefully what politicians and people with power say so that “alternative facts” are not accepted as the truth. I think social media sites such as Facebook allows for these “fake news” stories to be shared so frequently and then eventually be accepted as facts by the general population. Facebook has heard of these complaints and had created a new service which starts to flag fake news stories (http://wwlp.com/2017/03/10/facebook-taking-steps-to-stop-the-spread-of-fake-news/). Although this feature is too late because I think these fake news stories played a vital part in swinging the election, it will ultimately be very beneficial and eventually stop false facts from permeating social media.
I think Dil emphasizes a great point regarding what is “fake news” and what is the truth. From what I have witnessed recently is that the term “fake news” is not being used for its actual definition, but rather (dare I say) as an excuse for defying the truth that isn’t necessarily the easiest pill to swallow as reality. “Fake news” is defined as published fabrications and made up stories intended to beguile others that it is “authentic”. Now it seems to be used as a counterattack to every statement or headline that is deemed unflattering or incriminating regarding its subject matter, rather than declaring something false because it is indeed unverifiable. For example, illegal immigrants. Indeed there are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in America. Yet, declaring that all 11 million as “rapists” and “murderers” is merely a strategic way to twist the fact that there are some who possibly are rapists or murderers within the 2.7% illegal immigrant population who have committed felonies as Dil has mentioned. When compared to the reality that American citizens have a 8.6% adult population who have committed felonies, it clearly puts American is the lower tier. If given the opportunity to say that Americans are more malicious than illegal immigrants, I would not be surprised if there would be multiple reactions of others claiming that to be “fake news”. However, the statistics don’t lie. From the numbers, Americans are the ones committing more crimes. Whether it’s due to nationalist pride or simply a bias towards certain news media groups, it is important to recognize that not everything we think is bad is “fake”. The truth is not always pristine and pure and the point is not merely accept that everything is horrible but rather understand the reasons why and what had caused that statement to be undeniably true and is indeed factual. Our personal beliefs and opinions are not the indicators of what is true or false. They indeed influence what we decide to accept or not, but that is not the method of which facts are verified. In regarding social media or any type of media, it is important we are able to differentiate which sources are bias or maliciously trying to create controversy with “fake news”. With this in mind, more than just false facts on social media can be stopped. Even popular media deemed “credible” can be exposed for the benefit of the public.
How to get the public to distinguish between true and false is probably the number one challenge of our times. Unfortunately, prof has no clue how to start.
I agree one-hundred percent on all the arguments that Dil made. I think it’s important to emphasize that a lot of these ridiculous statements and claims are done by Trump but are actually supported by millions of Americans today. Living in New York City, we don’t usually have the opportunity to hear from the other side. A friend once told me that to understand how immigrants are you would had to live with an immigrant or at least be in constant face to face communication with immigrants. Sadly there are areas with very low immigrant populations. These are the states and areas where our perspectives are not being properly shared showing how our nation is truly divided. Additionally, many Americans live in filter webs, only watching news channels and reading articles that support their own perspectives. But, this is not how progress can be made. Overall, I think it is important for Republicans and Democrats to listen to one another more than anything else.
Dil,
I agree with you completely! Not only does our society seem to be surrounded by “alternative facts,” but it’s even more troubling that many people seem to unhesitatingly accept these as the truth. There has always clearly been political bias in almost every news channel, but our current president takes this much further by mocking news that don’t agree with his standpoint, or even inventing absurd events, as recently seen. Although in a big city like New York these don’t seem to make much of an impact, they have a powerful and more lasting effect on insular places. For instance, Trump’s stance on immigration is heavily criticized in New York, because our city is literally made up of immigrants, and we see that this diversity enhances our living environment. However, it is not hard to understand why a small town would be swayed by Trump’s fear message. To solve this issue, we simply need more transparency and honesty in mainstream media, as well as more effective communication between the two sides of the immigration debate.