Migrant Caravan Tears Down Border Fence, Storms Mexico

[_SteelHead]

Offered asylum in Mexico, caravan rejects it an continues march to the USA...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migr ... co-n925171

Yes, because when you are fleeing violence it makes sense to stop in Mexico....?

[_Res Ipsa]

I read it. I thought it was a good survey of how past president's exercised authority with respect to enforcing immigration laws. What it didn't really do was discuss the legality. It would be interesting to read an analysis of how the president's constitutional pardon power applies in the immigration context. Why couldn't the president grant a blanket pardon to all folks in the country illegally? Otherwise, there's always a tension over the extent to which the president has any discretion in enforcing the law (in contrast to acting contrary to law). i think that's a pretty longstanding clash between the legislative and executive branches.

One of the weird things is that the Constitution gives the federal government no explicit authority to regulate immigration. It's not an enumerated power. It just allows control over the naturalization process. This was as originally intended. Immigration was a free-for-all and was treated that way. If you're an originalist, which many conservatives purport to be, where's the federal authority to regulate immigration coming from?

Good point, EA. An originalist should take the position that the feds control who can become a citizen, but the states control immigration. Of course, that would require states to control their internal borders with each other...

[_EAllusion]

The rhetoric about the migrant caravan containing dangerous diseases seems to have really ratcheted up recently. Here's an example on Fox News personalities claiming the migrants are going to bring leprosy to the US.

This is so ridiculous that it should be amusing, but people take it seriously, so it's hard to laugh too much. I suspect the common reaction to this is just that it's fearmongering. I don't think that's the right take, though. Xenophobia is driven by the emotion of disgust. Disgust is the emotional desire not to be contaminated by something offensive and it underlies a lot of xenophobia. Because feeling of disgust tend to blend together, other things people innately are prone to feel disgusted by tend to correspond with xenophobic rhetoric. A classic example of this is disease, especially gross diseases like leprosy. It's also why you see other disgust-trigger terms in association with xenophobic rhetoric: "dirty" "filthy" "infest," etc.

Pay attention to how much of this caravan coverage uses disgust trigger words. When you see it, it's not so much scare tactics as sharing and attempting to spread feelings of disgust.

This post is brought to you by my overpriced education in psych.

[_ajax18]

The rhetoric about the migrant caravan containing dangerous diseases seems to have really ratcheted up recently. Here's an example on Fox News personalities claiming the migrants are going to bring leprosy to the US.

This is so ridiculous that it should be amusing, but people take it seriously, so it's hard to laugh too much. I suspect the common reaction to this is just that it's fearmongering. I don't think that's the right take, though. Xenophobia is driven by the emotion of disgust. Disgust is the emotional desire not to be contaminated by something offensive and it underlies a lot of xenophobia. Because feeling of disgust tend to blend together, other things people innately are prone to feel disgusted by tend to correspond with xenophobic rhetoric. A classic example of this is disease, especially gross diseases like leprosy. It's also why you see other disgust-trigger terms in association with xenophobic rhetoric: "dirty" "filthy" "infest," etc.

Pay attention to how much of this caravan coverage uses disgust trigger words. When you see it, it's not so much scare tactics as sharing and attempting to spread feelings of disgust.

This post is brought to you by my overpriced education in psych.

Go live in Central America for a little while. Once you've smelt it as well as seen it, you'll soon realize that no fearmongerer needed to send you subliminal messages to incite your emotion of disgust. You'll realize your primitive brain had very good reason to see it as disgusting.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Offered asylum in Mexico, caravan rejects it an continues march to the USA...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migr ... co-n925171

Let them come to the US! Employers love to hire to hire illegal immigrants. We need illegal immigrants to work for us. It just makes economic sense to me.

[_EAllusion]

It’s because conservative media is a major driver of the coverage choices of mainstream media

Stop trying to make yglesias' moronic "hack gap" thing happen.

Note the caravan coverage has disappeared basically overnight. Between the two, Washington Post and NYT ran over well over 100 stories on the subject in the weeks leading into the election. Dozens made the front page. They covered a obviously manufactured story into the ground even though it transparently was being used as an election strategy. Right-wing propagandist media dominates mainstream media coverage choices. The question isn't "do they?" It's "why?"

[_EAllusion]

In fact, if the conservative media machine can do what they did with the caravan leading into the midterms in terms of controlling mainstream media agenda, I think it's pretty clear they can manufacture whatever scandal they want against whomever Trump's opponent is and have their media beat it into the ground while mainstream media treats it as a serious he-said, she-said issue at worst.

And above-the-fray geniuses will declare that this is Democrats fault for nominating someone with those issues. They should've nominated someone who wasn't vulnerable to [manufactured conservative outrage]. They all are guys. All of 'em.

[_DarkHelmet]

Note the caravan coverage has disappeared basically overnight. Between the two, Washington Post and New York Times ran over well over 100 stories on the subject in the weeks leading into the election. Dozens made the front page. They covered a obviously manufactured story into the ground even though it transparently was being used as an election strategy. Right-wing propagandist media dominates mainstream media coverage choices. The question isn't "do they?" It's "why?"

Yep. It was quite funny to see the front pages at breitbart and infowars days before the election. The caravan was an existential threat to America. Big scary photos of brown people dominated the home page of those sites. Today, nothing. Did the brown people suddenly disappear? It is interesting watching right-wing media manipulate their sheep so masterfully.

[_SteelHead]

The rhetoric about the migrant caravan containing dangerous diseases seems to have really ratcheted up recently. Here's an example on Fox News personalities claiming the migrants are going to bring leprosy to the US.

This is so ridiculous that it should be amusing, but people take it seriously, so it's hard to laugh too much. I suspect the common reaction to this is just that it's fearmongering. I don't think that's the right take, though. Xenophobia is driven by the emotion of disgust. Disgust is the emotional desire not to be contaminated by something offensive and it underlies a lot of xenophobia. Because feeling of disgust tend to blend together, other things people innately are prone to feel disgusted by tend to correspond with xenophobic rhetoric. A classic example of this is disease, especially gross diseases like leprosy. It's also why you see other disgust-trigger terms in association with xenophobic rhetoric: "dirty" "filthy" "infest," etc.

Pay attention to how much of this caravan coverage uses disgust trigger words. When you see it, it's not so much scare tactics as sharing and attempting to spread feelings of disgust.

This post is brought to you by my overpriced education in psych.

Go live in Central America for a little while. Once you've smelt it as well as seen it, you'll soon realize that no fearmongerer needed to send you subliminal messages to incite your emotion of disgust. You'll realize your primitive brain had very good reason to see it as disgusting.

Ever been to Belize or Costa Rica. You over generalize.

[_Kevin Graham]

Offered asylum in Mexico, caravan rejects it an continues march to the USA...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migr ... co-n925171

Yes, because when people want you dead and you're fleeing violence, the safest thing to do is to camp across the Mexican border. That's like going from Alabama to Mississippi.