A longtime journalist who edited immigration for a regional news outlet told me: “Even when we report facts about undocumented immigrants, the readers either don’t care or don’t want to believe it. That’s how successful the right-wing sites have been.” The overall result? Immigrants are seen as mere labor, our physical bodies judged by perceptions of what we contribute, or what we take. Our existence is as broadly criminalized as it is commodified. I don’t how many times I’ve explained to a fellow journalist that even though it is an illegal act to enter the country without documents, it is
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