Crimmigration Framing in News Media

Labels, whether self-imposed or put upon by society, can be crucial as it relates to a person’s identity- how they define themselves and how others define them. Unfortunately, when the media labels a person through how they report, definitions are not always aligned with values that the person may hold and sometimes paint pictures that aren’t defining that person’s choosing.

At the intersection of criminal law and immigration law, the new term “crimmigration” has emerged. Through contextual proximity, the media uses phrases and placement to criminalize immigrants by using keywords and connecting immigration and criminality in the audience’s minds. By using these various phrases and the intentional placement, the person receiving the information takes on an opinion that is not rooted in the factual information but in the framing of the person itself, often skewing the debate on the issue of immigration.

Normalization of Crimmigration Framing in News Media

Citizenship status labels often invoke various connotations, depending on how the wording is imposed and where, both for the migrant as well as general society. The implications of these labels can be staggering for migrants and for the immigrant population in general.

Trigger Words

When a person’s citizenship status is mentioned when talking about an unrelated crime, it subconsciously connects immigrants with crime with the placement of the words at such a short distance from each other, reading as one thought. Using terms such as “illegal immigrant” as opposed to “spouse of green card holder” or “parent of U.S. citizen child” has had a significant impact on the empathy and attribution that the audience has towards immigrants. Terms such as “illegal immigrant,” “illegal alien,” or “illegal” are harmful, as they negatively portray the mere existence of a person as bad. Interestingly enough, these terms are not extended to other crimes, such as driving under the influence or committing murder. One would not be labeled as an “illegal murderer,” but in regards to immigrants, it has become commonplace for media outlets to use these terms when describing someone, ultimately placing a label upon them in the reader’s mind.

Hey, what's going on?

After downloading thousands of news articles from various (and multi-partisan) national, state, and local media outlets looking for a variety of keywords, phrases from these articles were placed into two different categories- positive framing or negative framing of immigrants. The search that was run looked for instances where certain words were placed within a 30-word spread of each other to capture when harmful words were placed in the same context as words like "immigrant" or "alien." This was done to find occurrences of ways in which subconscious bias presents itself through word placement.

What Did You Find and Who is to Blame?

In order to get a clear picture, articles from various local, state, and national news sources were pulled. Because Arizona and California have vastly different immigration laws, these two were selected as the primary state case studies, downloading sources from various regions around each state. Although overall, California tends to be more progressive than Arizona, it was important to find different sources from different regions, as not all areas lean the same way.

For national sources, it was important to gather sources that had different reporting styles. Both historically progressive, as well as restrictive sources were gathered, in order to get a robust picture of the information that is being disseminated on a national scale.

Interestingly enough, the findings show that media sources across the country had similar results. Regardless of whether the source was more progressive or more restrictive, the initial results showed that this framing, when done on a large scale, seems to portray immigrants negatively across the board, linking them with crime in general. These types of findings seem to suggest that the media, in general, has normalized this label in regards to immigrants and immigration.

So, What's Next and Why Should I Care?

After seeing the initial results, the following steps for this research are to go deeper within the articles to see the full context of how these words are being used. Opening up and viewing the context of the entire article can help paint a better picture of the types of rhetoric that are being displayed in the news.

Gathering this data will help NPOs in various movements to work with news reporters in educating them on the ways in which harmful terms and unconscious bias in their reporting can ultimately affect communities. Leveraging this information with relationships, NPOs can help to change the narrative that is being told about communities and help reporters to present the issues without bias.

The next planned steps are to assess the salience of the articles as it relates to key immigration issues that are occurring at the same time of the increase in articles. Focusing on the messaging that is being generated surrounding key debates, new bills, and elections will help to analyze if these articles are influential in the passing of critical immigration laws.