Politicized, hateful, lack-of-context media reporting dehumanizes US migrants
1st of 4 parts
Bridging the Political Divide of US Immigration through Transformative Journalism
A 2024 dissertation by Dr. Marivir Montebon
New York - The painful struggle over how the US talks about immigration is nearly as old as the nation itself, influencing not only politics but also the stories people read, hear, and believe.
This study found out that resentment and hate towards immigrants and confusion over immigration issues in the public sphere are caused by the lack of historical context, the use of hateful language, and being too focused on the political lens. These are the major challenges of media reporting on US immigration. When information goes through the media, such information naturally amplifies and consolidates an individual’s cognitive bias.
Resentment and hate towards immigrants and confusion over immigration issues in the public sphere are caused by the lack of historical context, the use of hateful language, and being too focused on the political lens. (Photo by Joel Montebon)
The immigrants’ invasion rhetoric, particularly at stealing jobs, dates to the 1870s. In 1873, news and advertisements of “Chinese invasion” were published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Promoted by white labor and politicians, the steady bombardment of this “invasion rhetoric” through the media became a nationwide uproar and eventually led to the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
This was America’s first major immigration law that banned an entire group of people from entering the US based on nationality. The act, signed by President Chester Arthur, was the outcome of years of racial hostility and anti-immigrant agitation by white Americans.
Lack of Historical Contextual Reporting
Angilee Shah, senior editor for Global Nation, the immigration vertical for Public Radio International, emphasized to journalists to “add information that provides historical background.”
Without contextual and historical reporting, disinformation in the mass communications ecosystem has become pervasive, as noted by Kuo and Marwick in a Harvard study on disinformation.
Absent in the journalist reports were historical context, for instance, on how and why thousands of Chinese labor ers were in the US in the first place. In hindsight, the sharing of history in immigration reports could have perhaps relieved tensions at that time.
Under the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, which expanded the Treaty of Tianjin of 1858, the entry of cheap labor of migrant Chinese propelled the development of the US railway between the East and West coasts. The then US Minister to China, Anson Burlingame, a lawyer, and former Massachusetts Republican representative, negotiated for this treaty upon the instruction of US State department secretary William Seward.
About 20,000 Chinese laborers came, which comprised 80 percent of the entire workforce of the railroad project that began in 1868.
Upon completion of those huge labor projects, the Chinese were no longer allowed entry to the US. At the same time, anti-Chinese sentiment was growing, which was instigated by the politicians themselves, such as California Democrat Congressman Thomas Geary, a proponent of the continuation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1892.
In the post-WWII era, the latest single piece of immigration legislation that brought in more people of color in the US was the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965, authored by Sen. Philip Hart (D-Michigan) and Congressman Emanuel Celler (D-New York). This was prompted by the great need of the US for labor and experts, opening to non-European immigrants in unprecedented numbers, with many arriving through employment preferences, which heavily favored highly educated workers.
The image of Asian Americans, who had immigrated predominantly since 1965, divisively emerged as “model minorities” as doctors, nurses, teachers, and other skilled professionals.
Before the INA of 1965, there was the 1924 Reed-Johnson Act or the National Origins Formula which aimed to preserve American homogeneity by allowing immigrants from Western and Northern Europe only. Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany accounted for 70 percent of the visas, while limitations were imposed on Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe. Immigration from Asia was completely excluded, except the Philippines, which was then a US colony.
In 1942, the Bracero Agreement was reached by the US government and the Mexican government to address labor shortages in US agriculture. Mexican workers, all men without their families, were recruited to work on short-term contracts on farms and in other war industries during World War II. After the war, the program continued in agriculture until 1964.
Referencing immigration laws with the economic requirements of the US and global situation could come in handy for a journalist’s report that would provide an expanded picture and better understanding of American society.
Demeaning Language
Hateful language may well be considered the icing on the cake of a story that has no historical context.
Mainstream media has been in the forefront of using demeaning language to describe illegal immigration, especially during the presidency of Donald Trump, who was the top resource person for media as the one who used immigration slurs publicly.
In 2017, the media institution Media Matters published its research study, written by Dina Radtke, citing slurs, particularly “illegal immigrants” or “illegals,” used by mainstream media in reporting about illegal immigration. Covering the period September 1, 2016 – January 10, 2017, the study summarized its findings with this description: “ABC was the only network to avoid using such terminology entirely, while Fox News was by far the worst offender.
The use of demeaning language, by national and local politicians, media practitioners and commentators, and even by ordinary citizens, reflects a lack of empathy and knowledge of the historical contributions of immigrants in the US.
Columnists and commentators of these giant networks continued to use these slurs despite corrective efforts made by journalist organizations and the Library of Congress. These institutions cited that the practice of describing a person as “illegal” is “dehumanizing and grammatically incorrect.”
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) issued a statement on June 23, 2016, reminding journalists not to use “pejorative terms like ‘illegals’ -- which is shorthand for ‘illegal aliens’.” “By incessantly using metaphors like ‘illegals,’ the news media is not only appropriating the rhetoric used by people on a particular side of the issue, but also the implication of something criminal or worthy of suspicion.”
Trump’s immigration slurs as part of his election campaign in 2016 had a wide and immediate impact on the media and the public at large, despite the corrective measures made by media institutions.
Before Trump, anti-immigrant slurs had already been prevalent among immigrant communities. For Filipinos, the Tagalog slang for undocumented is “TNT” which literally means tago ng tago or “always in hiding” in English. In the informal circles of Filipino friends and family, people who are undocumented are openly called TNT in a rather put down manner.
In the Filipino newsroom, however, the word TNT is not used by professional media. It is changed to “undocumented immigrant.” Momar Visaya, editor of Asian Journal in New York, was quoted in a news article, “We only use ‘undocumented immigrants’ in news, features, columns, and editorials. We believe no person is illegal, only undocumented.”
The use of demeaning language, by national and local politicians, media practitioners and commentators, and even by ordinary citizens, reflects a lack of empathy and knowledge of the historical contributions of immigrants in the US.
Immigration as a Partisan Political Issue
Using the lens of partisan politics solely in reporting about immigration is another pervasive problem in the US media.
Mexican journalist Leon Krauze noted that reporters are too focused on the political ramifications. “I think that my colleagues, with a few exceptions, look at immigration basically as a political issue. What does this or that policy do to the political balance in Washington? Does this hurt the president? Does this hurt the Republican Party, the Democratic Party? They look at it through a political lens.
Krauze, a journalist for Univision and contributing columnist for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, wrote in his March column that immigration coverage in the US needed to touch on the reality that migrants are fleeing from gang violence, police brutality, domestic and sexual abuse, and the devastation of repeated hurricanes.
Shah has emphasized: “Always talk to people most affected by policies. A lot of immigration stories leave out the immigrants who are very affected. Those immigrants might be able to provide you with the expertise and the context.
Beyond discordant rhetoric and politics, immigration reporting needs to provide a picture of the human face of the immigrants as they desperately seek to survive the perils thrown at them in their motherland and to thrive in life. #
A shorter version is published at TheFilAm. www.thefilam.net/archives/45799
Marivir R. Montebon is a New York-based journalist who runs her media company Awesome Media, Ltd. In 2012, she established the online magazine OSM! (awesome!) together with her daughter, Leani Alnica Auxilio. In 2022, she started her social media podcast Conversations with MM.
She received a Harvard University Certification in August 2025 on "Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media."
Montebon was president of the Filipino American Press Club of NY in 2018 and 2019 and now serves as a member of the Board of Directors for 2026 and 2027.
In May 2024, she finished her Doctoral Studies, with distinction, at the HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership in New York City.
She founded Women’s Immigration & Communications Café in 2018, a nonprofit media platform for women and immigration issues.
