America’s Long History of Immigrant Scaremongering
July 18 2014 1:35 PM
America’s Long History of Immigrant Scaremongering
Conservatives claim that the young immigrants crossing the border are diseased and pose a dangerous public health risk. It’s a sad American tradition.
By Jamelle Bouie
Since last October, the United States has caught tens of thousands of children crossing the border with Mexico, most fleeing violence in Central America. Thousands continue to come into the country, and President Obama has called the influx an “urgent humanitarian situation,” asking Congress for $3.7 billion in funding to deal with the children and families that have arrived.
Complicating the problem are growing protests against the immigrants. “I’m protesting the invasion of the United States by people of foreign countries,” said one person at a recent demonstration in Oracle, Arizona. “This is about the sovereignty of our nation.” And at a similar one in Murietta, California, demonstrators held signs saying “illegals out!” and called for the U.S. government to “stop illegal immigration.”
But for as much as this anger is organic, growing from fear and anxiety, it’s also true that conservative media figures have stoked tensions with wild and dishonest rhetoric on the supposed threat of new arrivals. “Dengue fever, 50 to 100 million new cases a year of dengue fever worldwide. In Mexico, it is endemic. It’s a terrible disease, for anyone that’s had it,” said Fox News host Marc Siegel, who continued with a warning. “There’s no effective treatment of it. It’s now emerging in Texas because of the immigration crisis.” Likewise, on her radio show, Laura Ingraham declared, “The government spreads the illegal immigrants across the country, and the disease is spread across the country.”
Republican politicians have joined in as well. “Reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus, and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” wrote Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey in a recent letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His colleague, Texas Rep. Randy Weber, sounded a similar note in an interview with conservative pundit Frank Gaffney: “I heard on the radio this morning that there have been two confirmed cases of TB—tuberculosis—and either one or two confirmed cases of swine flu, H1N1. … We’re thinking these are diseases that we have eradicated in our country and our population isn’t ready for this, so for this to break out to be a pandemic would be unbelievable.” And Rep. Louie Gohmert—no stranger to the offensive outburst—told conservative publication Newsmax that “we don’t know what diseases they’re bringing in.”
More:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/immigrant_scaremongering_and_hate_conservatives_stoke_fears_of_diseased.html