The lies that President Donald Trump tells about immigrants are powerful but hardly new. In times of uncertainty and change, immigrants have always served as America’s scapegoat for economic, international, religious and cultural insecurities.
No matter how geographically or culturally different, immigrant groups have faced common stereotypes. At his inauguration, Trump used the old standby that immigrants “from all over the world” are “dangerous criminals.” Accusations of murder and rape predominate. Other common themes include invasion, disloyalty to the country and contamination. When Congress passed the 1924 Immigration Act 100 years ago, the bill’s sponsor claimed that “a stream of alien blood” was poisoning the nation.
Underpinning much of the anti-immigrant sentiment are racist theories of white European superiority and white America’s fear of “replacement” by people of color. When immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia peaked in the late 19th century, so did anti-immigrant sentiment and membership in the Klu Klux Klan. Racist pseudo-scientific theories abounded. Groups we now think of as white – Italians, Greeks and Eastern European Jews – were “swarthy” (not white) and considered to be biologically inferior. When a mob lynched 20 Italian immigrants, a commentator wrote, the country “debated whether all Italian-Americans were somehow all disposed to criminality by their genetic endowment or cultural inheritance.” The racism of yesteryear is not over. It still permeates our treatment of immigrants.
Just as immigrant groups faced common stereotypes, they shared the consequences of hatred: discrimination in employment, education, segregation in schools and housing, the ability to buy property and access to health care, to name a few. They all faced violence, especially lynching and massacres. Mexicans, Chinese and Native Americans were favorite targets. And of course, entire Black communities.
The press has fed the hatred with sensational negative stories about immigrants, depicting them as criminal, subhuman and beast-like. When a white mob destroyed Omaha’s Greek Town after an immigrant was accused of rape, one local newspaper opined that “if California has a Japanese problem, the people of Omaha had better review the growing Italian, Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian problem in their own backyard.”
In the 1880s, when approximately 2 million Eastern European Jews immigrated, antisemitism increased dramatically. They were not considered white – the Census Bureau listed their race as “Hebrew.” Old cliches still motivate violence against Jews. In 2018, using Hitler’s words, Trump claimed immigrants would “infest our country.” That same year, the Pittsburgh synagogue gunman who killed 11 people and wounded six said Jews were “invaders.” The gunman called them “an infestation” and “evil.”
An 1882 law banned Chinese laborers, the country’s first federal exclusion. Another law later extended the restrictions to other Asian countries. Assuming that they would be disloyal to the U.S., the government rounded up and detained 120,000 Japanese Americans, mostly citizens, for the duration of WW II. A century ago, Horace Greeley called Chinese Americans “uncivilized, unclean, and filthy …” After Pearl Harbor, the government rounded up and detained 120,000 Japanese Americans, mostly citizens, for the duration of WW II, on the assumption that they would be disloyal to the U.S. In 2020, Trump called COVID-19 a “Chinese virus,” and violence against all Asian Americans spiked.
Mexicans are the largest group of immigrants in the United States. We have a long, complicated relationship with Mexico and our policies have been inconsistent. We’ve invited Mexicans in, only to deport them a few years later. Trump’s first term brought mass deportations, separating families and children. Last week he declared a “national emergency” at the border. He has repeatedly accused Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs and crime to the country. Yet a few days ago he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a white millionaire serving a life sentence for running an underground online drug marketplace, Silk Road, where dealers and money launderers engaged in more than $200 million in illegal trade.
After 9/11, Congress targeted immigrants from 25 majority-Muslim countries, requiring fingerprints and registration. Polls found about 33% of adults in the U.S. thought it acceptable to detain Arab-Americans in camps similar to the internment camps of WW II. In 2015, Trump said he wanted “surveillance programs” and a “database”” for American Muslims. In 2017, he banned people from seven Muslim countries from entry. Unsurprisingly, anti-Muslim hate crimes rose again to 2001 levels. Still claiming that Muslims are terrorists, he has just ordered a new expanded ban.
What can you do? Always counter the lies. Always. Care for immigrants and recognize the connections between us – immigrants are our neighbors, colleagues and friends. Understand the connections between racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions. Educate yourself about immigrants and our common histories. Support groups working to stop anti-immigrant hate. Doing nothing is no longer an option.
Pat Langley is a Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network board member.
This article appears in Healthy, wealthy and wise 2025.
This post is so important, Pat. The lies that have been told repeatedly about our immigrant brothers and sisters is a grave injustice to human beings who just want to work, educate, and feed their children.. Last year I read Rachel Maddow’s book Prequel. She researched American history in the 1930’s when Hitler was infiltrating the U.S. with his fascism in the build up to WWII. His goal was to convince enough Americans to reject our involvement in the war effort so he could overcome all of Europe. Thousands of our citizens fell into this in the way of white supremacy, the KKK , Nazi supporters. It even infiltrated Congress. The language that was used then is exactly what we are hearing now.