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Article Excerpt
In his run for president Pat Buchanan maintained that, "There is an invasion of illegal aliens with one, two, three million people walking across our borders every year." Although these data are difficult to gather, the most reliable and generous estimates by the U.S. Census and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), contend that there are approximately five million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., making this population less than 2% of the total U.S population. Immigrants in the U.S. are a very diverse group, made up of both those with legal and illegal status. According to the INS, a little more than half of all undocumented immigrants come from Mexico. The remaining numbers of undocumented immigrants are from the pool of individuals who overstay their visas. Individuals, who enter the U.S. legally either for pleasure or business, fail to leave after their visas expire. These numbers are calculated into the overall "Illegal Alien" data (Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1998). According to a national Gallup Poll conducted in 1993, Americans mistakenly believe that most immigrants are undocumented or illegal. Americans also believe that immigrants from Latin America, especially Mexico, took more than they contributed to the US economy (De Sipio and de la Garza, 1998). Another political candidate maintained that "hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to utilize welfare." Although these data are also difficult to measure, it is not likely that welfare is a significant immigration influence. Welfare is not allocated to those individuals who are in the U.S. illegally. Congress bars illegal immigrants from using AFDC, SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid (except in an emergency), housing assistance, legal services, job training, unemployment, and student financial aid. Studies also consistently indicate that the mere presence of immigrants, both legal and illegal, in the economy results in a net gain in taxes, both federal and local, as well as overall spending in consumption (cf., Briggs and Moore, 1994).
THEORY
In order to understand the influence that this type of rhetoric has on undocumented immigrants, Social Construction Theory (cf., Gergen, 1999) is important to consider. Social construction theory refers to how groups of individuals, words, symbols or even social movements are characterized and perceived by the culture at-large. The characterizations may possess either positive or negative attributes. Social constructions are dynamic and fluctuate with the cultural "spirit of the times" or zeitgeist.
The social constructions of minority groups, for example, Asians, African Americans, Latinos are, at times, misguided in the popular press. Unrealistic social constructions shape and inform the views of the public, and become long-held beliefs that are taken for granted (Gergen, 1999). For instance, Quiroga (1997) maintains that there appears to be a correlation between Hispanic communities who receive positive constructions by political candidates in the press and political mobilization. He maintains when there is a lack of attention by political candidates in the press, or worse, only negative attention generated toward the Hispanic community, the result is lower levels of political participation or apathy.
The social constructions of minority groups also shape and inform their political and policy needs (Hunter, 1991). Cook (1999) maintains, for instance, that policy makers respond to issues as their prominence in the media increases. He goes on to say that politicians eager to please constituents base their platforms on the amount of positive or negative coverage on a particular issue. During political elections, Kern and Just (1999) maintain that constituents are also quick to accept candidate's social constructions and rhetoric is very powerful in swaying electoral turn out.
Social construction theory has been used to help explain why some target groups obtain better resources and attention from their government while other groups are scapegoated for social problems. According to Schneider and Ingram (1993), politicians portray senior citizens positively, and studies indicate that senior citizens are powerful constituents because they vote. It would then make sense why political candidates would rally around issues of preserving or improving social security, a senior citizen resource. Would the same rationale predict political response to initiatives intended to reduce or take away benefits from particular groups? For instance, how might this theory...
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