The death of Laken Riley, who Trump called “an American daughter,” is at the center of right-wing immigration rhetoric.

The death of Laken Riley, who Trump called “an American daughter,” is at the center of right-wing immigration rhetoric.

Republicans who are pushing for more restrictive immigration policy ahead of a pivotal election year continue to lean on an old strategy in their appeal to voters: broadly framing immigrant men as dangerous next to imagery of young White women victims.

In 2015 it was Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was fatally shot on a San Francisco pier. A year later, Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Iowa woman, was killed in a crash involving a drunk driver. In 2018, 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts was killed while jogging in her rural Iowa hometown. Now, it’s Laken Riley, a Georgia college student killed last month while also jogging.

All were White women, and their deaths, linked to immigrant men, became flash points in Republicans’ push for hard-line immigration policies. Led by Donald Trump, the party is using these deaths to call for policies like mass arrests, detention camps and militarized deportations, and pairing that with violent anti-immigrant language.

The rhetoric — which recalls the nation’s long history of racist attacks against men of color by casting them as threats to White women — also threatens the safety of immigrants, advocates say.

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/gop-is-using-imagery-of-white-women-victims-to-stoke-anti-immigrant-fear/

  • NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
    494·
    8 months ago

    It’s not the fact they’re showing the victim but moreso the fact that they’re using the victim’s image as propaganda to paint a disingenuous argument that immigration itself is dangerous, that all immigrants are dangerous by the very nature of being immigrants, and the only way to save young white women is to stop immigration. If anything, they’re defiling her memory by using her as a cheap prop in their lies and hate speech instead of focusing on the actual problems that perpetuate crime and the cycle of violence. It’s all bluster and no substance.