November 10, 2020 How people are portrayed on television – matters. Increasingly diverse storylines, characters and content creators are widely seen as positive, but how is this trend affecting the prevalence of stereotypes in our culture? Is it increasing our ability to empathize and act? In a recent study, Define American and USC’s Norman Lear Center examined depictions of immigrants on television and the impact of those portrayals. The study examined depictions of 129 unique…

April 29, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic has us all scared. This has fueled the spread of misinformation, racism, and antisemitism. The resulting vitriol and scapegoating has targeted immigrants as well. We must not allow the spread of the virus and necessary physical separation to sow philosophical division among us and lead to policies that harm those most vulnerable, including immigrants. It is going to take all of us banding together to come out the other side of this. That’s why…

August 08, 2019 Patrick Crusius, the white supremacist allegedly behind the August 3 massacre in El Paso, Texas, was very clear about his rationale for committing this act of violence. In an online screed titled, “The Inconvenient Truth,” he wrote, “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas… I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”  These words echo what we’ve heard in recent…

June 28, 2019 Edition: June 27, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 White supremacists increased college campus recruiting efforts with more propaganda distributions for the third straight year. ADL and partners are teaming up in an initiative to help redirect those seeking extremist content on the internet to material that exposes the falsehoods of these hateful movements. In a victory for immigration advocates, the Supreme Court ruled the Trump Administration cannot, for now, include the…

May 29, 2019 President John F. Kennedy was born 102 years ago today. His dedication to upholding the American ideal of a “nation of immigrants” catalyzed the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated the national origin quota system. ADL and Harper Perennial released the 60th Anniversary edition of President Kennedy’s book, A Nation of Immigrants, last year. His words are evergreen and remind us how a diversity of faiths, nationalities and…

April 25, 2019 On April 20, FBI agents arrested a New Mexico border vigilante leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins (aka “Johnny Horton, Jr.”) on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The arrest occurred just days after members of Hopkins’ group, the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), attracted considerable attention and condemnation for detaining at gunpoint several hundred asylum-seeking migrants and families crossing the border near El Paso, Texas. The two…

March 26, 2019 In January, the Trump Administration announced a new and unprecedented attack on asylum seekers and migrants. On the heels of its effort to institute an asylum ban -- denying asylum protections for those seeking entry to the U.S. outside regular processing at ports of entry, the administration implemented “Migrant Protection Protocols.” Also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, this new approach sends migrants seeking asylum back to Mexico to…