Lessons on the history of US Immigration Policy #5: Countering false anti-immigrant narratives

So far in this series on lessons on the history of US Immigration Policy, I have looked at the question – Is the US a Nation of Immigrants in Part I; how anti-immigration policies in the US are bipartisan in Part II; the dominant narrative around how we talk about immigrants in Part III; and an investigation into the root causes of people migrating to the US, especially those coming from Latin America, in Part IV. Today, I want to look at false narratives about immigrants.

For decades now, there have been certain narratives about immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, narratives that are false. Despite these false and unsubstantiated narratives, politicians parrot them, and most commercial news agencies perpetuate them. Here are a few of the more dominant false anti-immigrant narratives:

• Immigrants take jobs fro real Americans
• Immigrants drive down wages
• Immigrants don’t pay taxes
• Immigrants are a drain on the US economy

It is important that we create accurate narratives to counter these false narratives, so let’s do that for each of these 4 dominant anti-immigrant narrative. Much of what I am sharing here comes from an excellent book by Aviva Chomsky, “They Take Our Jobs!”and 20 other myths about immigration. 

Immigrants take jobs fro real Americans – In one sense, the idea that there are American jobs is somewhat meaningless, especially since the economy is increasingly a global economy. More importantly, immigrants to take jobs away from anyone, they actually do work that so few are willing to do. If we look at migrant worker jobs, where people are doing seasonal work, primarily outdoors, under harsh conditions, and for very little money, to claim that immigrants are taking migrant jobs from real Americans is ridiculous. 

A narrative that we should be thinking about and promoting is, corporations take our jobs. As I mentioned in Part IV of this series, NAFTA had a huge impact on Mexican workers, but it also impacted jobs in the US. Grand Rapids was impacted by de-industrialization since the 1970s, which escalated with NAFTA being adopted in 1994. According to data compiled by Public Citizen, since NAFTA, Michigan lost over 168,000 jobs (21.3 percent) because companies had relocated.  Corporations and their pursuit of profits take our jobs, not immigrants. 

Immigrants drive down wages – This false narrative is similar to the first one, in that immigrants have no control over wages. Business owners and corporations set low wages and they don’t care who takes their shitty jobs. The fact that undocumented immigrants take low paying jobs has more to do with their level of desperation to support themselves, but because many of them send money back how to family members still living in their country of origin. In addition, if there was more class solidarity amongst working class people, which included a push to invite undocumented immigrants to be part of labor unions, then they might be able to improve wages for immigrants and everyone else who should earn a livable wage.

Immigrants don’t pay taxes – This might be the most absurd of the false anti-immigrant narratives. First, if people are employed and receive a paycheck, federal, state and local taxes are automatically taken out of your paycheck. The majority of undocumented workers obtain fake social security numbers, in order to find employment. However, when federal, state and local taxes are taken out of their paycheck, they can’t claim them. So what happens to the tax money taken out of undocumented  worker checks? Those taxes stay in the coffers of state and federal governments. The reality is, if undocumented immigrants are part of the formal economy, they have taxes taken out, but they can’t claim them. This is why this false narrative is so awful. Can you imagine if average American workers who were paying taxes, were unable to claim those taxes? There would be an uprising amongst the working class.

Immigrants are a drain on the US economy – This false narrative is tied to the previous narrative about immigrants not paying taxes. Undocumented immigrants do pay into the system through taxes, but don’t have equal access to resources and services available to those with government sanctioned immigration status. The area that undocumented immigrants use more government services than everyone else are food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free or reduced-cost school lunches. However, it’s not the immigrants themselves who use this aid – they are not usually eligible – but rather their US-born children, who are citizens. 

When we have clear and well substantiated counter-narratives to the false anti-immigrant narratives being tossed about by politicians and perpetuated by commercial news media, we can contribute to reducing the hate and harm being directed at the undocumented immigrant communities.

For those who want to learn more about the history of US immigration policy, contact info@grrapiresponsetoice.org for information on workshops and presentations on this topic. Also, there is a scheduled presentation entitled, A People’s History of US Immigration Policy that will be held on Thursday, February 27, beginning at 6:30pm at Fountain Street Church. Details of that event can be found here.