ABSTRACT
Recent mainstream news coverage in the United States has focused considerable attention on issues of immigration (e.g., President Obama’s proposed executive order of immigration relief known as the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability). Still, U.S. media coverage of immigration since 1980 has tended to condition viewers to associate immigration with illegality, crisis, and government failure (Brookings Institution, 2008). News coverage in the summer of 2014 was dedicated to “waves of Central American children streaming across the border” (Sáenz & Douglas, 2015, p. 170). Racism has received scant coverage unless violence, unrest, or “tension” is involved (e.g., police officers murdering Non-White, mostly Black male, individuals). Overall mainstream U.S. news coverage tends to portray issues of racism and immigration as separate phenomena despite a history of racist immigration policies and the racialization of various immigrant groups in this country (Sáenz & Douglas, 2015; Sáenz, Douglas, Embrick, & Sjoberg, 2007).
