I think its safe to say that no one saw this coming. 538 amongst other polling websites predicted that Trump had less than a 1/4 of a chance of winning the election & then it happened. They were all wrong. While America’s staggering reaction showed just how surprising the election results were to a huge percentage of the population, more emotions have arose since Trump’s victory. We are now seeing more feelings of nervousness and despair amongst immigrants & their loved ones, stronger than they ever were before.

As light is being shed on the worry that immigrants are now facing, we are lead to the question.. What can we expect? What version of Donald Trump will be get? Better yet, what version of Trump’s immigration reform will we get?! Will we get the fear mongering Trump who promised the country a concrete wall to keep immigrants out? Or will we get the man who got softer on immigration reform as his campaigning came to a close and his need for votes grew? These are all real questions that teachers have been asked by Latino students of middle and high schools in Denver within the past 24 hours.

Unfortunately, even amidst the times that Trump attempted to dissociate himself from his early campaign rhetoric, his love for hyperboles have always overcome his ability to stay quiet in order to gain a bigger portion of the Latino vote. As Trump’s promise to remove ALL undocumented immigrants IMMEDIATELY has silently wavered, some new and less drastic (still drastic, though) promises emerged toward the end of Trumps’ campaign. First, Trump vows to remove ALL illegal immigrants with any criminal background, including people with violations as small as speeding tickets. NEXT, Trump assured his Trumpians that he will suspend all immigration from areas of the world that are terror-prone, Syria in particular. Next, Trump will increase the depth of all immigration inspections. But here is the kicker… Trumps says that all of these things will be completed within the first 24 hours that he is in office. And lastly, Trump promises, though it won’t be immediate, that the wall will be built.

So there ya have it. These are the changes that our beloved, new president have in store for our country. While people are terrified, these promises give warrant to their terror. Lets hope that his promises are as fake as his spray tan, for the hard working immigrants that developed and continue to develop this country.. #TrumpTrain

Since the first pushes for immigration reform in the mid-1800s, immigration policy has increasingly become a core issue in American politics and Presidential elections. Perhaps that has never been more evident than in the 2016 election, as 70 percent of voters say immigration is a “very important factor” in their ballot decision this month.

But where along the way did immigration turn from a fact-based appeal to a more emotional one?

In 2013, evidence of the shift can be found in an appeal for immigration reform by President Obama: “This is not just a debate about policy, it’s about people… who want nothing more than a chance to earn their way into the American story.”

Although this appeal was made in conjunction with bipartisan efforts at immigration reform (an undeniably factual and economical subject of legislature), the language that President Obama used to explain his support was sentimental. He appealed to basic human and American values of inclusivity rather than employing rational argument to feed his particular immigration narrative.

Blanketing immigration issues with emotion is also evident in the 2016 election, especially with candidate Donald Trump. A man who poses himself as a savior to a nation in crisis, Trump’s campaign has been centered around hard-hitting immigration reform and building his infamous wall between America and Mexico.

His opinions are divisive and clear-cut. His processes for achieving his immigration proposals are little less so. So how is Trump’s rhetoric managing to gain traction with voters?

He is successfully appealing to Americans’ – especially conservative Americans – fears that our country isn’t safe. He uses immigrants as pawns and characters in his fear narrative, creating his own definition of them and their threat to “our country as we know it.” In the process, he’s generalized the issue of immigration and especially immigrants themselves. With this generalization, it becomes easier for Americans to turn to emotion rather than facts to make their ballot decision, because the issue has been condensed into a seemingly black and white decision, when it undeniably isn’t so.

Capitalizing on Americans lack of knowledge on the particulars of certain policy issues is nothing new, but with the help of modern media, it’s becoming increasingly easier to win votes based on emotional appeals that are backed with little rational substance.

At our core, humans are emotional beings. As Drew Westen notes in The Political Brain, “In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins.” This is particularly illustrated with Trump’s immigration narrative in 2016.

Bashing Immigrants RIGHT BEFORE the election???

 

In the days right before the election, Trump has been racing around the country trying to get his last words in before the votes are cast on Tuesday and he is shooting himself in the foot over and over again.  The Los Angeles Times says he spent his final speeches this weekend in Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada bashing immigrants and revealing all of the intensely murderous crimes that they have committed.  What kind of craziness is this??  He has just a few more days to MAYBE win back some of the immigrant votes, make up for what he said before, make new promises.  But no.  He has to spend his last few speeches talking about how violent the illegal immigrants are and reinforcing his promise to deport them the minute he gets into office!!  This is no way to end a campaign!  Yes, for the voters who support him and his immigration rhetoric this may be a good thing, but for those he has lost through his rhetoric he just made things even worse.  A softer and more welcoming rhetoric would have been much more suiting for his last days.

 

 

White men commit crimes too

 

During his speeches this past weekend, Trump was largely speaking to a crowd of white men.  The majority of white men support him, so obviously his speeches were a big hit amongst the crowds.  His rhetoric may have reinforced the votes of the white man, but his harsh and unrelenting rhetoric has surely lost him even more immigrant voters.   Trump stated, “The crime that’s been committed by these people is unbelievable.”  Has he not thought about the fact that white men and American born people commit crimes too?  ALL types of people commit crimes.  How could he just act like immigrants are the only ones that commit crimes?  His main supporters (white men) statistically commit more crimes than the illegal immigrants do!!  But he doesn’t want to point this out because he is a white male himself and white men are his main supporters, so he can’t make them look bad.  He wants to pin the immigrants because he does not like them.  This rhetoric of generalization and assumption that immigrants are the worst threat out there has caused him to look more stupid than causing people to be scared of immigrants.  He appears to be so ignorant that his own people are just as capable of crime as illegal immigrants.  Politifact.com points out that most illegal immigrants come here to make and send money back to their home country to provide for their families.  While it is still illegal for them to be here, that story is far from murder and crime.  That is the story of a hard working immigrant who loves and cares about his family.

 

MORE lost votes

 

Did his harsh rhetoric and stereotyping lose him even MORE votes?  Yes, it did.  Early voting of Latinos in Florida and Nevada proves this fact as many Latinos and other immigrants have supported Hillary with their vote.  Trump needed to use the rhetorical strategy of knowing when to speak and when not to speak as we near the final days.  He would have been much better off even if he simply left the immigration issue alone and focused on other things such as foreign policy and trade.  The worst part of all of this is all of these harsh last minute speeches took place in swing states.  Multiple studies have shown that if Trump loses the swing states, he will lose the entire election.  Trump desperately needed these votes to win the election, and he completely squandered his chances.  I will be amazed if he even has a chance now after the damage he did this weekend.

 

 

 

I’ve seen quite a few posts thus far about the increase in Asian immigration to the US, and how it contributes to our society as a whole. A recent story found on Albuquerque Journal depicts an Indian woman who legally immigrated to America just a few years ago, and it reminds me of a story I’ve heard before. These stories draw a sharp contrast between authentic, personal accounts, and Donald Trump’s generality rhetoric aimed at immigration.

Not all immigrants are ‘bad’

My younger sister’s closest friend left India for America nearly a decade ago because her father wanted to provide a better life for their family. The family did things right — applied for citizenship and got their green cards, even if it meant a long, grueling process. The parents came over here with college educations, and hold steady jobs to contribute to our nation. Much similar is the story of Manasi Gopala, who legally immigrated from Bangalore, and currently works as a software developer in southeastern USA (Boak). Each of these narratives contribute to the “melting pot” known as America, and create powerful emotions surrounding them.

 

Trump’s take on immigration

While Donald Trump has been absolutely clear in his vision for illegal immigration, he hasn’t necessarily spoken about the legal immigrants in our country. In fact, his harsh anti-illegal immigration rhetoric has frightened those immigrants who are here legally. It’s far too late now, but I wish Trump would have mentioned narratives earlier on in his campaign about immigrants he has met on the campaign trail. Trump’s rhetoric never really mentions the average person, and he never shares any detailed evidence about people he’s helped, or simply come into contact with. Had Trump not spoken in generalities about immigration, maybe he could have reached out to the Asian or Pacific Islander voters. Rather, his communication strategy solely focused on making generalizations, which has made a majority of immigrants fearful of his plans. I truly do not believe Trump hates immigrants — he’s married to one — but he should have shifted his message to fit these facts, and possibly receive more votes.

Closing Thoughts

The election is wrapping up, and there’s really nothing else Trump can do to reach more voters. If he had spoken less in generalities, and detailed more narratives, maybe he would’ve had a better chance at reaching across the political spectrum. In the case of legal immigrants, Trump should have shifted his message in ways to capture their vote, rather than incite fear in them.

 

Work Cited

Boak, Josh. “The other side of immigration.” abqjournal.com. Associated Press, 6 Nov. 2016. Web. 6 Nov. 2016.

Donald Trump has just attempted one of the biggest “flips” in recent memory on one of his biggest issues in the campaign. In a speech on November 2^nd  Trump, drastically shifted his fear based rhetorical strategy on immigration to one much more forgiving, moral, and much more reasonable to many voters, but the change in ideology is large. The question that needs to be asked is if he is able to “stick the landing” and have this be an effective strategy so close to election day of November 8^th?

Donald Trump has been known throughout the campaign to use emotion in the way of fear as a strategy to get voters. His rhetorical strategy of calling them “rapists, liars, and drug dealers” along with his plan for the wall are ways of doing this; it has been his MO all along and what he has been known for. He seems to now desperately changing the emotion from fear to more values based one as a last ditch attempt to gain the middle ground. In his speech he said, “I want people to come in. I want tremendous numbers of people to come in.” He went on to say, “And we’ll have merit involved, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if we went a little bit on the merit system? We take people that are really going to help us to grow our country? Wouldn’t that be nice?” This is a dramatic shift from what we are used to hearing out of Trump because he is usually an advocate for much stricter borders and even wanting to ban all Muslim immigrants at one point in the campaign.

This is a drastic shift in emotion on the part of Trump and I am left wondering if it is too close in the election to make an effective impact. Most of America knows of Trump’s immigration plans and have known for a while now so I don’t believe him changing from fear to values only 6 days before election day is an effective strategy as people wont change their opinions on his views. It is interesting to question whether Trump is doing this because he is desperate or because he sees an opening and wants to use this change in emotion hopes of fitting through a small hole to gain the middle voters to win.

Throughout the 2016 election, both candidates have painted their own picture of what America looks like. On one hand, Donald Trump’s America is in danger, and he’s the hero that will restore safety and order. On the other, Hillary Clinton’s America is one of beautiful diversity and endless potential, mostly thanks to the Obama administration’s last four years of work.

Clinton and Trump have now spent months solidifying the images of their respective Americas in the minds of voters. On a policy level, immigration has been a key idea in creating these two distinct pictures of our country. But, as a recent Politico Magazine research effort shows, the two candidates have incorrectly construed their own immigration stories to fit the immigration rhetorics in their campaigns. And in doing so, they’ve thrown one thing to the wayside: the true solution to the immigration problem.

Let’s look at Hillary Clinton’s illustration of this problem.

Why Clinton’s Story Doesn’t Add Up:

As a nation built on immigrants, America will always welcome immigrants.

This is the most basic idea of Hillary’s immigration rhetoric. Clinton touts the deep immigrant background in her own family, invoking her grandfather from England several times during her campaign.

As Politico discovered, some of Hillary’s first ancestors living in the U.S. began to blame the influx of immigrants for their own job displacements. Working in the mines, Clinton’s great uncles did experience the opportunity associated with the American Dream. However, industrialization and technological advancement led to increased competition in the coal industry, and Hillary’s Rodham ancestors began to suffer from the consequences of outsourced labor, and America began to see its first serious debates on immigration.

The underlying issue in the immigration problems of past and present: “economic fundamentals.” Although Clinton invokes her immigrant-working family, she fails to include in her current immigration rhetoric the most basic problem that hindered her ancestors’ American Dream – the way to address immigration is with economic fixes. Clinton has led those Americans wary of her immigration policies to feel inherently un-American because of their doubts. Really, her rhetoric should incorporate more of an economic background to fully tell the immigration story she has frequently used in her own rhetoric.

Clinton spends an ample amount of time downplaying the immigration fears that her opponent has based his campaign on. Perhaps, an economical approach to Clinton would align better with the ancestry that she often calls into play to further her “stronger together” narrative.

Check out this video for a more detailed account of Clinton’s ancestry and its immigration story.

Recently, we have seen that Trump decided to soften his immigration reform stance in attempt to win a bigger portion of the minority votes. Even more recently, we have seen him make another move that may counteract his progress. Over the past few weeks, Trump has issued claims that the entire election process is not only “rigged” but also offered reason to his poll numbers being lower than HRC through using his favorite scapegoat: illegal immigrants. Trump is certainly not the first politician to claim that nefarious forces are working against him in favor of the opposing party. He IS, however, the first to accuse the government, the Obama Administration in particular, of purposely allowing illegal immigrants to flood across the borders to vote in the 2016 election with intentions of swaying the election polls in the Democratic party’s favor.

While many American citizens are aware that our current immigration policies restrict anyone who enters the country illegally from voting, statistics show that around 60 percent of Republicans believe that illegal immigrants do vote despite current policies. While Trump’s unsubstantiated claims may just seem like another instance of his cavalier rhetoric that has provided him with both good and bad attention, this claim could reap far greater damage in Trump’s polling than I believe he realizes.

While illegal immigrants and their already legal counterparts have developed a fearful mentality in result of the deportation and harsh immigration reform claims that Trump made earlier in his campaign, instead of cowering down and accepting their possible dark fate, we have seen a spark of inspiration and  motivation arise amongst the undocumented population throughout this campaign season. This historical movement entails immigrants, while not able to vote themselves due to their citizenship status, contributing to raising voting awareness in minority communities, assisting legal minorities in getting registered AND encouraging citizens to vote. In addition, illegal immigrants have participated in and formed groups such as The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) which aim to educate and help register high density immigrant neighborhoods that don’t typically vote in large numbers, in attempt to get more people engaged in their fight against Trump.

So while Trump goes back and forth, at one moment trying to attract immigrants and at another offending them again, I do believe that his fate amongst majority of the minority communities has already been decided. Coalitions have been formed to keep families of immigrants together and to ultimately keep Trump out of office. With preferences aside and despite Trump’s continued efforts, I don’t believe the efforts of minorities and immigrants will go unwarranted. I do believe that Trump’s chances of winning this election have gone down tremendously & will continue to decline.

Fighting for Citizenship

 

Beginning back in April of 2016, many immigrants began a massive scramble for citizenship so they could have the right to vote in this year’s election.  We are reminded  The Washington Post that these immigrants do not only include Mexicans and Latinos, but also include Asians and Pacific Islanders.  Obama allowed the scramble and supported the mass amounts of citizenship papers to be passed through at a faster pace than normal.

 

What’s the Big Deal?

 

There are two obvious reasons why immigrants are scrambling to gain citizenship.  Not only do they want to ensure that they have the opportunity to stay in America since Trump has stated that he will remove every single one of the illegal immigrants within his first 100 days in office if elected, but they also want to be able to have the opportunity vote against Trump.  Trump’s rhetoric surrounding his immigration policy and his negatively emotive responses have consistently pushed away many, if not all immigrant voters.  His harshness and lack of emotion towards these people has lost him all favor in their eyes.  So what’s the big deal?  Many of these immigrants did indeed gain their citizenship, therefore, the right to vote.  Not only have many immigrants turned to support Hillary in her gentle rhetorical approach to welcoming foreigners, but the entire group of immigrants as a whole has become strongly Democratic and is expected to be a big factor in the swing states this year.

                                                   

Again, Donald Forgets to Think

 

Trump often forgets that immigrants can be anyone from another country, not just Mexicans and Latinos.  Additionally, he failed to realize that his statements and demeaning words to the Mexicans and Latinos would cause the Asians and Pacific Islanders to also turn against him.  They are angry because they feel that if he feels that strongly about Mexicans and Latinos, then he must feel that strongly against them as well.  His failure to use the rhetorical strategy of “dulling the point” has cost him the vote of nearly ALL immigrants rather than just the Mexicans and Latinos.  “Dulling the point” is a rhetorical strategy in which someone does not express himself as strongly as he may feel in order that he will gain more support for himself or his views because his views do not appear as harsh.  Even if Trump feels the way he does, he would have been wise not to use such negative comments or inclusive comments of all immigrants for that matter.  He did not understand how bad he was hurting himself by sharpening the point instead of dulling it.

 

Will There Be Enough?

 

The question is, how many immigrants were able to obtain documentation before the election so they can give their vote to Hillary?  Hillary has proven to have an incredibly inclusive rhetoric throughout the campaign and has welcomed these immigrants with open arms.  If Hillary wins, the immigrants that have newly become citizens will celebrate in their inclusion and their ability to have the same treatment as a native to America.  But if Trump wins, will these new citizens regret becoming a part of this country?  Will his rhetoric and actions towards them change if they are no longer illegal or will he continue to shove negatively emotive comments in their face and find other ways to exclude them?

 

 

Sources:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/us/politics/presidential-debate.html?_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/26/heres-a-close-look-at-how-immigrant-voters-could-affect-the-2016-election/

 

 

A recent video published by CBS News narrates how the immigration rhetoric of both Clinton and Trump is affecting those across the Mexican border. While the two have taken extremely different approaches on immigration, illegal immigrants are pouring across the border before the election because of the candidates’ way of framing their message, and how the messages elicit specific emotions.

Let’s begin with Trump.

As Trump has promised to build a wall across our southern border, he has framed this message to activate desirable emotional associations of those infuriated with our immigration policies. Unfortunately, he has done just the opposite to those who are either in our country illegally, or support open borders. These people view him as racist and ignorant, as nothing in his immigration message appeals to them. According to CBS’s news story, several people are illegally crossing the southern border near McAllen, Texas, before Trump is possibly elected and builds the wall. Trump’s message has elicited fearful emotions, and people are scrambling across the border for safety before it is too late.

Moving on to Clinton.

Hillary, on the other hand, has taken a much softer approach to illegal immigration, as she has incorporated the value of being inclusive in framing her message. While much of her stance may be fueled by Trump’s positions of not being inclusive, it is still part of the Democratic platform to frame messages with equality. For this reason, Hillary has elicited desirable emotions of illegal immigrants, encouraging them to come to America because she will grant them some type of amnesty. In this case, these people want to come before she is elected President, so they can receive this amnesty.

Different positions; similar outcome

Although Trump and Clinton view immigration at opposite ends of the spectrum, people are coming across the southern border because of both of their messages. With Trump framing his message in an exclusive, divisive way, illegal immigrants fear this is their last chance to come to America before the wall is built. And with Hillary framing her message to include these illegal immigrants, they are crossing the border before the election to receive her form of amnesty. It is ironic that both of these candidates’ messages have elicited different emotions, yet have received similar outcomes of immigrants coming to America.

 

Donald Trump is not shy about using emotion in this campaign. He has no qualms with striking fear into a voter in attempt to sway their vote. One way in which he has done this is with conspiracy theories. One of his main theories of the campaign has been that the government has failed the people on the issue of immigration. He hopes to sway voters by making current elected officials seem incompetent or that there is some sort of corruption occurring.

Trump claims that the President and current politicians have failed the American people on the issue of immigration. Trump has said “Countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws like they have to be enforced.” By enforcing this conspiracy theory he is hoping to make voters see the established politicians as failures who cannot contain the borders so he should be president because he will secure the border. As Hofstader put, it he is making it seem like the government has failed to help.

Trump rhetoric is exhibiting many of the elements that come with conspiracies. He believes that people who do not share similar views to him on this are part of the problem. Trump has made this conspiracy widespread. I, myself, have seen firsthand on Facebook how people now believe the government was negligent on securing the border and it is the politician’s fault that there is an “immigration problem” in our country right now. This issue is self-sealing in that any politician that tries to oppose this conspiracy is seen as just digging deeper into the corruption that exists. They will be labeled a liar that has failed our country.

What is interesting with this conspiracy is that it seems to be working on many people. Trump’s base has bought into this and they believe he is the best man to fix it. Trump seems to have effectively utilized the conspiracy to enhance his support on the issue of immigration.