The Dangers of Immigration Myths

• In Event: 097 - Section on Human Rights Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Rights and Race

Abstract

Immigrants in the United States generally have low status despite the valuable contribution they make. This status is often perpetuated by myths about immigrants that are sometimes a result of misinformation, and other times are part of a strategic anti-immigrant agenda (Luntz 2007, 284-5; Chavez 2008; Garcia 2012)

In this paper, I argue that this type of negative rhetoric toward immigrants is often the result of “unarticulated fears” (Massey 1995) rather than empirical evidence about immigrants’ contributions.

Immigration myths have real consequences (Flores 2003, Massey 2013) that keep immigrants from making their maximum contribution to society. Current research suggests that if immigrants are given a path to legal status, they will add a net $25 billion to the economy each year (Brooks 2013; Salas 2013). Conversely, if deportation of all undocumented immigrants were to occur, the United States would lose “$551.6 billion in economic activity, $245 billion in gross domestic product and approximately 2.8 million jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time” (Salas 2013). Immigration myths also assign a position of otherness to immigrants, dehumanize them and create threats to their identity.

In this paper, I first discuss the theoretical foundations that help explain why these “unarticulated fears” (Massey 1995) (or “myths”) exist, followed by a discussion of the inaccurate nature of several major immigration myths. Through an extensive review of academic and journalistic literature, I find overwhelming support for encouraging (instead of sanctioning) immigration (even in the case of undocumented immigrants and those working in the informal economy).

Author

• Jeffrey R Oliver, Michigan State University