WE’RE RECLAIMING THE REAL STORY ON IMMIGRATION
Throughout the election, the endless stream of ugly and dangerous rhetoric directed at immigrant communities in the U.S. is at an all-time high. Unfortunately, a lot of this disinformation has seeped into everyday conversations. We think it’s about time to correct the record on immigrants. America’s Voice has launched “Reclaiming Our Story,” a national campaign taking back our power and telling the real story of immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our nation every single day. The campaign website features a one-stop shop of helpful facts, news links, infographics, blogs, and social media content that provides a counterweight to the negative and false narratives about immigrant workers and their families. To kick off the campaign, AV held a press call (see our release in English here and Spanish here, which include links to the recording) featuring commentator and strategist Maria Cardona, Immigration Research Initiative Director David Dyssegaard Kallick, and former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, a champion of immigrants throughout his tenure in Congress. We also disseminated a social media toolkit to help partners share this content within their own networks, as well as a blog post highlighting the campaign. You can also be an important partner in sharing the real story about immigrants by visiting the “Reclaiming Our Story” site, boosting its content using the #ReclaimingOurStory hashtag, and sharing this information within your own circles. “The story of immigration is central to who we are as America, and immigration has by far been a blessing to the United States,” said America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas.” Click here to visit our new “Reclaiming Our Story” site.
TRUMP’S ANTI-IMMIGRANT MESSAGE GETS MORE DANGEROUS AND CONSEQUENTIAL
In this final sprint to Election Day, Donald Trump observers across the board have been raising the alarm that he has become increasingly unstable while more fully embracing fascistic rhetoric and policies and is leaning even more heavily into a vile and anti-immigrant closing argument. In Aurora, Colorado, Trump has insisted “he’s the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls ‘animals,’ ‘stone cold killers,’ the ‘worst people,’ and the ‘enemy from within,’” Politico reported. And while many have debated the “fascism” term for years, Trump’s 2024 campaign has without a doubt put fascism on the November ballot. The recent assessment from former General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, has been one of the most consequential, following his sober-minded conclusion that Trump is “fascist to the core.” Other notable voices discussing Trump’s dark messaging include media analyst Brian Stelter, who commented on CNN that “everyone who paid attention in high school history class knows that Trump’s anti-immigration language is the language of fascists and white supremacists throughout history.” Trump’s vision, which began years ago by disparaging immigrants, is a malignant cancer, and it is rapidly spreading, said Cárdenas. “As his rhetoric and vision for America gets even more dangerous, there is a growing chorus of voices highlighting both the extensive damage his indiscriminate mass deportations would inflict on all Americans, but also how unprecedented and dangerous it remains that the argument of a major party presidential candidate is a carbon copy of the language used by fascists and white nationalists.” Read more here.
KUDOS TO UNIVISION TOWN HALL QUESTIONERS
As Trump makes vile, anti-immigrant lies the centerpiece of his closing argument and proposes a dangerous vision for the nation centered on violence and retribution against citizens and non-citizens alike, some of the most powerful questions that have held him to account and captured this dynamic were from ordinary Americans. Notably, Latino questioners, identified as undecided voters, many of whom have direct experience and perspectives on immigration, bravely stood before Trump at a Univision town hall this week and respectfully but forcefully asked him some of the essential questions that needed to be asked, including the economic consequences of his mass deportation agenda and his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection. In response, Trump reiterated lies about immigrants and the 2020 elections, refused to answer specifics and reminded the questioners – and all Americans – what’s at stake. “The voters at the Univision town hall cut through the fog and distractions of election dynamics and offered clear-eyed and sharp reminders of who Donald Trump is and what’s at stake for the country in the 2024 elections,” reacted Vanessa Cárdenas. “Trump relied on his usual mix of refusing to answer, pivoting to lies and falsehoods, and doubling down on his dangerous, costly and self-destructive vision for the nation.” Read about their excellent questioning here.
THE HUGE MISTAKE OF THINKING TRUMP’S ATTACKS ARE NOT AIMED AT YOU
In her weekly column, America’s Voice consultant Maribel Hastings writes that it would be a huge error for any person of color regardless of political beliefs or immigration status to believe that they will have immunity from Trump’s threats, including his pledge to deport upwards of 20 million people from their homes and communities. She notes a recent Marist College (N.Y.) survey indicating that a notable portion of foreign-born respondents did not believe that Trump is talking about people like them when he speaks about immigrants. Other polling indicates Trump has shored up some support among Latino voters. “I’m not an expert in psychology or human behavior, and I can’t explain why a candidate who denigrates immigrants daily has the support of Latinos,” Hastings writes. “But we can’t minimize the danger of this.” She writes that dismissing it by saying that Trump will do none of what he says is like having amnesia about the first term of his presidency, where he sought to end DACA and make Dreamers deportable, implemented family separation and the Muslim bans, and has now pledged to turn the American military against American people who oppose him. “Perhaps many of those Latinos who believe Trump’s policies will not affect them will be surprised if they become victims of racial profiling and fall into some immigration dragnet simply for their physical appearance or skin color,” Hastings says. Her column was also published in several outlets, including La Opinión, El Tiempo Latino, and Radio Bilingüe. Read her column in English here and Spanish here.
A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS
AV’s new “Reclaiming Our Story” campaign includes a number of powerful videos that showcase the proud history of immigration in this country. As the first video in the series says, we are and have always been a nation of immigrants. Click here to watch and share the first video from our “History: A Nation Of Immigrants” series.
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
This week, the Harris-Walz campaign shined an important light on one of the darkest moments in our modern history: the Trump administration’s family separation policy, which tore thousands of wailing children from the arms of parents and guardians. Despite the fact that some children remain separated from their families to this very day due to this cruel and traumatic policy, Trump, with the help of Project 2025, has pledged to carry out mass family separation from coast to coast if he returns to the White House in January. Ahead of Trump’s Univision town hall, the Harris-Walz campaign held a press event featuring three children who were separated under the policy. While they were eventually reunited with their loved ones, the trauma of the separation still lingers. “And after that, we still fear. We — I go to therapists, but I still have the fear of Trump being reelected, and that same thing happening to me or other kids ever again,” said Billy. “And I don’t want this to happen to any more kids.” Following the event, Billy and his dad spoke to Despierta America, where he described being told by immigration officials that he would be adopted by a new family and that he would never see his father again. “[U.S. immigration officials] lied to me when they said they were going to separate me from my dad for one day because he had to go to court,” Billy said. “After that day, I did not see him again.” Click here to watch their emotional Spanish-language interview.
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