Thanks Daily News: How the Media Fosters Ignorance of Asians and immigration

I cringed when I saw the cover of this morning’s Philadelphia Daily News: the blurred back of an Asian man with the headline "The illegal world of ‘Mr. Cheng’." 

After all, how many Daily News covers do you see with Asians on them? So now we get a full cover story devoted to an Asian resident of this city, and darn if it isn’t a surprise that:

1) we’re anonymous; 

2) we’re "illegal"; and

3) we’re a symbol of a horde of illegal immigrants secretly hiding in Philly (1 of 103,000!).

A few years back, I worked with the reporter, Julie Shaw, who was circumspect and responsible in covering a case I was working on about a deaf Indonesian boy seeking political asylum. I don’t think there’s any deliberate intent to do harm here on her behalf.  But the problem with the story is that it takes an extremely inflammatory issue – illegal immigration – and presents it through an extremely narrow frame without any sort of context, commentary or perspective. It alone doesn’t exude ignorance but it fosters it.

It’s not like the Daily News regularly covers immigration issues so it’s hard to think that this story fits any broader purpose than something rather exploitive, no? Hey, got a lead on a guy working illegally. Let’s follow him and report on where he lives with other undocumented people, where he works, how he gets paid, and quote him saying how grateful he is to be working while other "real Americans" are unemployed – then let’s see what our readers think about it!

Anyone else wonder how that will go?

The story becomes more problematic when paired with the accompanying sidebar that presents a "crackdown" on illegal immigration framed entirely from ICE's point of view. Here we get real specific about who ICE’s "illegal" targets are:

The office is aware of immigrant communities' use of temporary-employment agencies to find jobs for undocumented workers. It sees such agencies as a threat.

Such agencies serve immigrants not only from Indonesia, but have cropped up to serve Hispanics from Central and South America, Africans, Chinese and Vietnamese, according to ICE.

Then there’s the real kicker of an online poll that asks you to read all of this and vote:

Who do you blame for illegal immigration?

• The illegals
• The employers
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
• No one. That’s how my family came to this country.

OK. You know what? I take back my comment above. This package exudes AND promotes ignorance. Way to really get people informed on immigration guys! 

This whole package is frankly appalling in its ignorance of why there are so many undocumented people in the U.S. It treats immigrants as little more than cheap labor, and overlooks the critical role of family in drawing and keeping immigrants here as well as the complicated mixed status of a significant portion of American families. It gives no sense of contributions immigrants make overall to the culture or economic revitalization of cities and Philadelphia in particular (Washington Avenue, Chinatown, West Philly, Olney, etc.). And it presents ICE as some sort of protective line between real Americans and "the illegals" (cue scary music here) when in fact ICE has made it into the headlines far too often for their human rights abuses, ranging from Texas’ T. Don Hutto facility which abusively imprisoned children and political asylees to horrible immigration raids to deaths of immigrants in ICE custody.

In 2007, I worked on a case involving a young Chinese mother, Jiang Zhen Xing, who miscarried twins following a violent deportation attempt where she was denied adequate food, water and medical attention. This happened during a scheduled visit with her immigration officer at 16th & Callowhill Streets. While her husband and two young sons waited outside, ICE officials dragged her through a back door and shoved her into a van, bruising her in the process. During the ride to JFK Airport, Philadelphia ICE officers mocked her cries of pain and told her “no more American babies for you.” Their plan? To dump her onto a plane to Beijing which would have been 2,000 miles away from any relatives, without clothes, ID, money, or any notification to any family member. When her husband asked anxiously about her whereabouts hours later, the ICE officer at 16th & Callowhill refused to answer his questions, instead smugly advising him to come back the next morning when they’d tell him where she was.

It’s hard for me to understand what kind of mentality it takes to deny a pregnant woman in obvious distress and severe pain any amount of basic care. But it was clear from the commentary stream on philly.com and messages at Asian Americans United that plenty of people could operate on only one plane – if she was undocumented, for any reason, she had it coming.

Today, we’re looking at a City administration that appears to be breaking a decade-old understanding that police would not conflate immigration with community policing. At last report, a Pennsylvania prison is now taking the former political asylees of T. Don Hutto, including children, contributing to PA's ever increasing incarceration rates. The D.A.’s office is front and center in a new system called PARS which strengthens ties between the D.A.’s office, the courts and ICE.  Meanwhile, we have a rapidly growing population of immigrants hightailing it out of Philadelphia for the suburbs – losing Philadelphia residents, commerce, and economic and neighborhood revitalization opportunities.

More than ever, as the city debates serious issues around immigration and specifically deportation, community policing and a new District Attorney, we need a sense of responsibility and rigor in the debate around immigration. Instead what we get from the Daily News is the "illegal world of ‘Mr. Cheng’."

It’s yet another example of a historic cycle of scapegoating immigrants in difficult economic times. It promotes and fosters ignorance on a critical issue of concern impacting the region. It paints Asians in particular and the broader immigrant community in broad strokes and feeds into anti-immigrant sentiment with "blame polls" that themselves reflect appalling ignorance.

I’d like to think that stories like this just end up lining my kids’ guinea pig cage, but the fact of the matter is that many of us will be working to combat the ignorance and fallout for a long time to come.