October 24, 2018

Migrant caravan plays into conservatives' false, racist narrative

located:	Honduras, USA
editor:	Yair Oded

On October 13, hundreds of people set out on a treacherous journey from San Pedro Sula, Honduras towards the United States border, fleeing exacerbating gang violence and poverty in their country of origin. In the days since, thousands more have joined what has become to be known as the ‘migrant caravan’, which currently includes roughly 7,500 Central American asylum seekers. Although the migrants are still hundreds of miles away from the U.S. border, the American president – backed up by numerous conservative politicians and media outlets – has utilised the caravan to stoke racial fears among his voter-base and urge them to vote on the November 6 midterm elections.

The media hype around the caravan started roughly a week ago when conservative media channels began covering the story and portraying the wave of migrants as an imminent threat to U.S. sovereignty and security. The president then hopped on the Defamation Wagon and began to Tweet and comment daily about the caravan, labelling it as a “national emergency” and characterising the migrants as ruthless and dangerous criminals seeking to pour into the U.S..

The president and vice president then further inflated their bogus depiction of the caravan, claiming that “unknown Middle Easterners are mixed" into the group of migrants and warning that a failure to stop them would result in terrorists affiliated with ISIS entering the country. During a press conference held by the two in the Oval Office, both the president and vice president failed to substantiate any of their claims regarding Middle Easterners being present in the caravan, with the president saying “There’s no proof of anything. But there could very well be… They say it happens all the time from the Middle East,” and the vice president stating, “In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as ‘other than Mexico.’ That means from the Middle East region.” It should be immediately noted that what the vice president has claimed is downright false, as the Department of Homeland Security statistics he’s referring to from 2017 are not specific to the U.S.-Mexican border and do not contain any indication that Middle Easterners are mixed within the current caravan.

Furthermore, a senior counterterrorism official from the administration has told CNN this week that, "while we acknowledge there are vulnerabilities at both our northern and southern border, we do not see any evidence that ISIS or other Sunni terrorist groups are trying to infiltrate the southern US border."

In the current political climate, however, facts bear minimal significance. As was the case in the 2016 elections, the president and his fellow conservatives use hyperbole and false statements to magnify underlying racial tensions among certain segments of the population to scare voters to the polls. In a rally in Texas this week, for instance, the president has warned the crowd about the caravan and accused liberal organisations and Democrats of being the funding source behind it. While these accusations have no base in reality, they nonetheless prove to be an effective tool to energise certain voters and further demonise the Left.

Under such circumstances, the media, community leaders, and socially-conscious politicians play a crucial role in changing the negative narrative promulgated by the current administration and exposing the real story behind the caravan. As a first step, media groups should be cautious in their portrayal of the caravan; they ought to refer to it in their reporting as what it truly is – a group of individuals and families seeking shelter from the terror in their countries, as opposed to depicting them as an intimidating swarm of invaders. It is also up to us to acquaint ourselves with the circumstances in the migrants’ countries and learn about the atrocities that propelled them to embark on the perilous journey.

Finally, we must understand that such waves of migration are only expected to rise, not wane. We must realise that it is an intricate web of interrelated factors that set them in motion, which encompasses, but isn’t limited to: climate change, corporate greed and proxy wars that breed regional instabilities. As a global community it is our duty to jointly work toward finding solutions to such problems and view these issues as a reminder of our shared humanity and fate, not as a cause for further fragmentation and paranoia.