Anti-Immigration Rhetoric Analysis

The anti-immigration rhetoric in U.S. politics is becoming more relevant in the media, academia, and most importantly, in legislation. By looking at legislation and scholarly research, the history of anti-immigration rhetoric is traced back to the years of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, after the Mexican-American Civil War in 1848. History has shown that early segregation of Mexicans began during the Manifest Destiny ideology. U.S. settlers felt an obligation to expand further west, stealing Mexican and Indian lands along the way. Furthermore, the ideology of superiority became more common as U.S. legislation began targeting any non-Anglo ethnicity during the Great Depression. Anti-foreigner rhetoric expanded after World War II when more

targeted third world Latin countries in defense of the communist threat. The communist threat, thus became a gateway in which the U.S. used to intervene in countries that offered resources and cheap labor. In 1960 the Guatemalan Civil War erupted after the U.S. military intervened in fighting against Guatemalan peasants and Mayan descents who were fighting for basic human rights in a corrupt government. Furthermore, in 1979 the Salvadorian civil war broke out as a result of a communist conversion by left wing guerilla groups against a corrupted government. In addition, the U.S. contributed to the civil war by providing the Salvadoran military with weapons and arsenal, thus increasing the violence in the country and prolonging the war. David Beacon, argues that the displacement of immigrants is a direct cause of economic disturbances in their home countries that leads to high levels of poverty, which leaves these migrants no choice but to migrate to work for cheap labor (Beacon ---:73). In addition, Beacon argues that the U.S. further complicates immigration reform to keep immigrants vulnerable in the work force by not providing them rights or their ability to progress in the country (---:81). Furthermore, Beacon connects the labor vulnerability brought upon undocumented immigrants after they are displaced by their home countries due to economic distubances. As was the case