President Obama recently stood in front of the nation and made a historic, and much anticipated, announcement on immigration policy. His executive action will spare millions of mothers, fathers, workers and students from the threat of deportation, and was the result of the work of a mobilized and passionate immigrant rights movement.
However, as audiences leaned forward to absorb the details of the president’s announcement, advocates and activists around the country were likely not surprised to hear him begin the list of actions he intended to take with the US-Mexico border. We know by now that political discussions of immigration policy almost always begin with the border region, regardless of party or ideology. The political mindset holds that the persuadable public needs to hear about “border security” before they can care about relief for undocumented Americans.
But assuming this 1) greatly underestimates audiences’ compassion, understanding and obvious support for a roadmap to citizenship, and 2) only serves to reinforce a “law and order” narrative that works against pro-immigrant messages in the long term. We know from messaging experts and research that how you start the conversation matters immensely and significantly influences where you’re able to take audiences in the end. The more people hear about the need to “secure” our borders and uphold the “rule of law,” the more difficult it is to pivot them to the compassionate part of themselves that wants to protect the rights of immigrants, preserve families, and rely on values like community and opportunity over protection and security.
It is therefore crucial for immigration advocates – and all of us as a movement – to speak out and work to replace the dominant narrative around the border with a proactive, values-based story about what kind of communities we all want to live in. And to condemn what none of us want: an outsized police presence with no oversight, human rights violations and a militarized zone running through our communities.
It’s actually an easy story to tell. We all live in communities, and we value and desire the same things about them: a shared culture and history, a sustainable economy, safe neighborhoods, good schools, solid infrastructure and so on. People living in the Southwest border region want these same things. They want their kids to grow up with fond memories of their communities, to root for sports teams, to pride themselves in their unique culinary heritage.
What they don’t want – what none of us wants – is to live in a region with an outsized police presence equipped with the same kind of drones we’re flying in Afghanistan. They don’t want their kids’ childhood memories to include checkpoints and detention facilities, or to live with a law enforcement agency that has no oversight and no one to answer to for abuses. And they don’t want to live in a region where excessive border enforcement tactics have resulted in an increase in deaths, both for those in custody as well as those who now look for the most desolate and dangerous sections of the desert region to cross into this country with the hopes of providing for their families.
It’s possible to tell a story about community and to condemn the kind of excessive enforcement that affects the border communities so negatively. We need better, commonsense border policies that uphold our values and move everyone forward – not political rhetoric that moves people into a mindset that doesn’t help any of us.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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