During Tuesday night’s presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, immigration predictably showed up as a talking point.
Among the breakout moments included Trump amplifying false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets — a statement city officials say there is no evidence to support.
“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said of immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, repeating a claim from an unverified social media post that asserted that a “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” had witnessed a cat hanging from a tree at a home where a Haitian neighbor lives. (J.D. Vance posted these same claims online last week, stating his office received multiple inquiries from people saying their neighbors’ pets were abducted by Haitian migrants).
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The “eating pets” stereotype has long been used against many immigrant communities of color in the United States — in season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, for example, Larry David’s character says that the Korean wedding caterer is going to serve them a friend’s dog — with the connotation being that such communities are wild, dirty, and immoral. Though the exact origins of the stereotype are unknown, it dates back as early as 1883 when a Chinese American journalist Wong Chin Foo offered a reward to people who could prove Chinese people were eating dogs and cats, according to the Museum of Chinese in America.
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"This dehumanizing language has real actions and real consequences."
Jennie Murray
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Some took Trump’s comment as ridiculous, with the moment sparking jokes from immigrants and people from immigrant families that among the first things they did when they moved to the United States was steal their neighbors’ pets and eat them. However, experts say that these repeated false claims lead to the dehumanization of immigrants and detract from the need for essential immigration policy to be implemented.
“This dehumanizing language has real actions and real consequences,” Jennie Murray, the president and CEO of the advocacy organization National Immigration Forum, tells Refinery29 Somos. For instance, there’s the “Walmart El Paso shooting [which left 23 people dead] and in Brownsville, a man plowed into 18 people standing in line waiting for services [resulting in eight people dying].”
In fact, hate crimes against several marginalized groups, including Latines, have increased over the past several years, according to data from the FBI and research from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in part because of such xenophobic comments.
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“At worse, people commit violent crimes,” Murray says. “But even if they don’t, these words infiltrate the way people think about policy solutions.”
Where the two candidates stand on immigration
Immigration is an important personal issue in Latine communities. Although nearly 80% of Latines are U.S. citizens, one in three Latine adults living in the U.S. are immigrants, per the Kaiser Family Foundation, and around 400,000 American kids (including non-Latines) have a parent with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS), according to UnidosUS.
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"These words infiltrate the way people think about policy solutions."
Jennie Murray
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As a result, Latines are heavily invested in immigration policy reform, with three quarters of Latines across political parties surveyed in a 2021 Pew Research Center study stating that the U.S. immigration system requires “major changes or a total rebuild.”
According to the Washington Post, while illegal crossings at the Mexico border reached the highest levels in U.S. history under the Biden administration, current crossings are currently below those that occurred during Trump’s final months in office.
How immigration will rank among defining electoral issues remains to be seen, but advocates say that while the loudest voices seem to be dominating conversations about immigration, the majority of Americans are in agreement with finding humane solutions that bolster the U.S.
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"The real challenge is our broken immigration system."
Murad Awawdeh
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“The real challenge is our broken immigration system,” Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of New York Immigration Coalition Action, which advocates for immigrant rights across New York State, tells Somos. “The last time we had any meaningful reform was in ‘86, ‘87 under Ronald Reagan.”
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Adriana Cadena, director of the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition, agrees, stating, “We need to reimagine how we address the issue of immigration in the long term, in a way that doesn’t repeat the same mistakes past administrations have made and that uplifts immigrants’ humanity.”
On the issue of deporting undocumented people, Harris’ stated stance is that she believes in an “earned pathway to citizenship.” She has stated that she intends to sign into law the bipartisan border security bill that was killed earlier this year (during the debate, she accused Trump of stopping the deal for his political gain). The bill would have introduced tougher standards for the asylum process by requiring migrants to show during initial screenings that they have a reasonable possibility of being granted asylum. Migrants who cross the border illegally between a port of entry would be detained and receive a screening in the following days. If they pass that screening, they would then receive a work permit, be placed in a supervision program, and have their asylum case decided within 90 days.
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"Right now asylum isn’t being used in the way it was intended because it’s one of the only legal pathways available. The capacity isn’t there so we can’t process people in a humane and orderly way."
Jennie Murray
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“Right now asylum isn’t being used in the way it was intended because it’s one of the only legal pathways available,” said Murray. “The capacity isn’t there so we can’t process people in a humane and orderly way.”
While Murray thinks the bill will ensure the asylum system isn’t overtaxed, she’s predominantly concerned with ensuring that asylum as a pathway is retained.
Per the Associated Press, the bill also calls for more tracking, rather than detention, of families who arrive at the border.
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This proposal has received mixed reviews from immigration experts, with critics stating that the current asylum process is deliberately loose because people may be fleeing urgent and dangerous situations and that making it stricter would not only make it more onerous, but could be a matter of life-of-death.
“One thing that the Harris campaign and Democrats need to do is stop running to the right,” Awawdeh says. “The U.S. has long been a place of refuge and sanctuary. … Instead of trying to one-up Trump on Trumpian policies that are horrific, they should be leading with a vision of immigrants as the future.”
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"The U.S. has long been a place of refuge and sanctuary. … Instead of trying to one-up Trump on Trumpian policies that are horrific, they should be leading with a vision of immigrants as the future."
Murad Awawdeh
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Trump, on the other hand, proposes finishing a border wall and mass deportation. During his administration, immigration was a cornerstone issue as he implemented a host of controversial policies, including an executive order banning the admission of travelers, immigrants, and refugees from Muslim-majority nations in 2017. He also attempted to end the DACA program, but was prevented from doing so by a legal injunction.
Additionally, he introduced a policy requiring the arrest of anyone caught illegally crossing the border that resulted in thousands of family separations.
Trump has also stated that he would bring back his “remain in Mexico” policy, which was overturned during the Biden administration and would require asylum seekers to stay in Mexico as they await a decision on their case. It is also anticipated that he will attempt to end TPS, per The New York Times.
His campaign website states that he will strengthen the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), bring back the travel ban, and “begin the largest deportation program in American history.”
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What’s next?
According to a study from Stanford University, dehumanizing language against immigrants — including calling or comparing immigrants to animals — has increased over the past several years. Using AI to track more than 200,000 speeches since the 1880s, researchers found that hostile rhetoric used today is reminiscent of that used to speak about Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, when they were targeted by the U.S.’s first country-based restrictions on immigration.
The study also found that there is a partisan divide when it comes to the language political parties use to describe immigration, with Republicans “more frequently using words associated with crime, legality, deficiency, and threats,” and Democrats more often using words associated with culture, contributions, and family.
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"We keep having these cyclical conversations about immigrants as these imaginary boogeymen responsible for why the government can’t fix the issues that everyday Americans are facing. The burden is on those elected to deliver for constituents and to truly meet the needs of all who call this country home."
Murad Awawdeh
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Many argue that there is an inherent connection between the dehumanization of immigrants in language and their dehumanization in policy, which is why California and Colorado have eliminated the use of “alien” and “illegal” in their state statutes and replaced the terms with “undocumented” and “noncitizen.”
“We keep having these cyclical conversations about immigrants as these imaginary boogeymen responsible for why the government can’t fix the issues that everyday Americans are facing,” Awawdeh says. “The burden is on those elected to deliver for constituents and to truly meet the needs of all who call this country home.”
As immigration advocates and leaders envision what immigration reform would ideally look like, they are calling on political leaders to think beyond the enforcement paradigm.
“How do we address immigration with an approach that doesn’t solely revolve around enforcement and instead establishes more opportunity across the board?” Cardena adds. “We need to find a way for folks to have a pathway to citizenship and we need to strengthen the safety net and support access to housing, healthcare, education — things that impact everyone regardless of whether they’re an immigrant or not.”
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