The death of Laken Riley, who Trump called “an American daughter,” is at the center of right-wing immigration rhetoric.
Republicans who are pushing for more restrictive immigration policy ahead of a pivotal election year continue to lean on an old strategy in their appeal to voters: broadly framing immigrant men as dangerous next to imagery of young White women victims.
In 2015 it was Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was fatally shot on a San Francisco pier. A year later, Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Iowa woman, was killed in a crash involving a drunk driver. In 2018, 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts was killed while jogging in her rural Iowa hometown. Now, it’s Laken Riley, a Georgia college student killed last month while also jogging.
All were White women, and their deaths, linked to immigrant men, became flash points in Republicans’ push for hard-line immigration policies. Led by Donald Trump, the party is using these deaths to call for policies like mass arrests, detention camps and militarized deportations, and pairing that with violent anti-immigrant language.
The rhetoric — which recalls the nation’s long history of racist attacks against men of color by casting them as threats to White women — also threatens the safety of immigrants, advocates say.
Cool. Like 3 deaths cause by immigrants. Now do deaths caused by American citizens and guns. Maybe mass shootings.
Clearly immigrants are the problem.