Which is it — a murderous band of disease-ridden invaders working diligently to bring terrorism and havoc into our country or a group of women and children walking slowly toward the U.S. fleeing gang violence and seeking asylum?
Depending on which cable news channel you’ve been watching to get your worldly information, you probably have one of these two pictures of the migrant caravan. Issues like immigration have a history of dividing our nation along party lines. Democrats typically favor more open immigration policies. Republicans tend to oppose them. While America’s party divide on immigration is not a new story, the difference in news coverage of the migrant caravan is unusual. If you are asking yourself why the split on this issue is so severe, take note of today’s date. The midterm elections are Tuesday, and both parties are jockeying for positions in battleground states. Make no mistake: The caravan is being used as a boogeyman to scare voters.
When you vote, please take a careful look at all the information available to you. Avoid far-fetched theories even if they come from the president himself.
When President Donald Trump tweets about the caravan, he makes it seem like the sky is falling. Trump tapped out this frantic message a few weeks ago on Twitter: “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in (to the caravan). I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy (sic). Must change laws!”
There is no evidence of individuals from the Middle East posing as migrants. Trump also implied that people from the Middle East are inherently dangerous, an idea teeming with prejudice and misinformation.
When a group of migrants got into a violent confrontation with Mexican law enforcement, Trump issued a heavy-handed response at a press conference Thursday. "Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to the Mexican military where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm," essentially saying that if migrants were to throw stones, they would be met with a hail of bullets.
This might seem like an extreme response to Democrats watching MSNBC, but to Republicans placing their trust in members of their own party and Fox News for information, a harsh response might seem appropriate. Fox News coverage has emphasized the potential health risks of letting the migrants into the country. A guest on Fox, seemingly reputable as a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, said migrants in the caravan were carrying leprosy, smallpox and tuberculosis, and the migrants would “infect our people in the United States.”
Fox had no way of independently confirming that claim.
Why is the migrant caravan being framed as a threat to our national security? Why is Trump vaguely alluding to Middle Eastern terrorists’ involvement in an immigration issue happening half a world away?
Like any good magician, Trump and company are playing a classic game of misdirection — getting all your attention focused on a red herring while the real “magic” is happening in the background. To see why some conservatives are making such a stink over the migrant caravan, think back to a few weeks ago when the story started gaining traction in major news outlets.
What was the major story then? Maybe it was the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who is thought by Turkish officials to have been killed by agents from Saudi Arabia, a key Trump ally. Saudi denials of their involvement fell apart throughout October, creating a political oil fire that Trump could only extinguish by detonating an even larger story to starve the Khashoggi scandal of oxygen. A murdered journalist does not play well with voters going in to the midterms.
As we’re left with less than two days before the polls close Tuesday, we urge our readers to look at the migrant caravan story with a healthy dose of skepticism. Vote for candidates who will work on healthcare, the economy, education and the environment. Try not to focus on fringe issues like the caravan, which are last-minute attempts to stoke fear and increase turnout of the base.
