Words Matter: The Politics of Identity in Increasingly Harsh Migration and Crime Control Policies

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As was seen in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, public opinion matters. For the last several decades, migration and crime control laws, policies, and practices have increasingly emerged across the globe in response to perceptions of a relationship between current migrants and their danger to public safety and national security. These perceived relationships have remained so strong that increasing reports of constitutional and humanitarian violations against migrants, mostly poor people of color, are dismissed against the backdrop of their identity as “criminals,” “terrorists,” “aliens,” and even “animals.” Despite mounting costs and growing research that little correlation exists between migrants and crime and terrorism, harsh migration and crime policies continue. But why? Why do individuals, despite their outward concern for egalitarian norms, condone, and in fact increasingly call for, harsh and often deplorable treatment against particular migrants? This chapter begins to explore these answers through an examination of the psychology and sociology of human behavior.  Specifically, it examines how public attitudes are shaped through language and emotion. By focusing on the way in which political and social media frame their discourse to impact human behavior in a particular way, better mechanisms may be created to counter the detrimental effects these policies have on both individuals and societies across the globe.