Trump and His Tech Enablers Are Profiting Off of Anti-Immigrant Hate
7 JAN 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Meta announced it will eliminate fact-checkers across its platforms and roll back moderation of harmful content while also naming UFC President Dana White to its board of directors. The elimination of already meager fact-checking tools removes critical defenses against viral falsehoods, while the addition of White—an outspoken Trump ally and purveyor of inflammatory rhetoric—sends a clear signal about Meta’s priorities: embracing disinformation and abandoning accountability. As social media platforms continue to amplify anti-immigrant narratives and embrace right-wing extremism, Democrats face an urgent need to reclaim the immigration debate with bold leadership and strategic messaging.
Statement from Beatriz Lopez, Co-Executive Director of Catalyze/Citizens:
“Meta’s latest decisions—eliminating fact-checkers and appointing Dana White—highlight a growing and dangerous alliance between unscrupulous tech giants and the incoming Trump administration. By prioritizing profits and political alliances over accountability and safety, Meta is further accelerating the spread of disinformation that endangers immigrant communities, undermines public safety, and erodes trust in democratic institutions.
As our report reveals, the volume and reach of disinformation on Meta’s platforms and others have reached unprecedented levels, with immigration-related misinformation alone generating billions of impressions. This is not just about immigration; it’s about diminishing trust, the deepening of division, and the weakening of our democracy.
Tech corporations like Meta shouldn’t shirk responsibility for the crisis they have created. They’re profiting off of anti-immigrant hate. Greater transparency, responsibility and accountability is needed – not a free pass that enables extremism and falsehoods.”
Read more in Beatriz Lopez’s new op-ed:
The prevailing narrative that Democrats lost in 2024 because they weren’t “tough enough” on immigration is possibly the most asinine, tired and exasperating takeaway of the New Year. Once again, the peanut gallery of the old guard of Democratic administration-pasts and slick-talking white males is lighting up the firing squad against the “insatiably angry” left who have apparently dragged the party down. Their timing never ceases to amaze me either, as we head into the beginning of a hostile four years where American families stand to be cruelly disrupted by mass deportation, economic instability and persecution by nature of their immigration status.
You only have to follow the money and the volume of right-wing rhetoric to see the real story – despite holding far more popular positions on immigration reform, Democrats long ceded this issue to the right who have capitalized on their silence with sophisticated, well-funded communications and political coordination. And now, a Trump victory will not only unleash a ruthless force to wreak havoc upon a population of people who are parents, siblings, aunts and uncles of U.S. citizens and the leading economic force post-pandemic, but also allow tech and social media companies to continue to skirt their responsibility in addressing disinformation and online hate.
Rewriting America’s Immigration Story for Profit and Political Gain
For four years, President Biden and his administration failed to socialize their achievements on immigration policy, including revoking hundreds of Trump policies that had gutted our legal immigration system, separated families, and created dangerous conditions at the southern border. In fact, I doubt most Americans know that the Biden-Harris administration advanced over 600 executive actions on immigration, let alone that 3.5 million people became U.S. citizens – the most in presidential term. It’s the most remarkable legacy no one talks about, filled with actions that most Americans support.
Alas, what the public mostly heard for four years was a dark tale of immigrants in America and a chaotic border. Republicans masterfully captured the imagination of Americans and their anxiety about inflation, cost of living, and housing as GOP leaders like Governors Greg Abbott (TX) and Ron DeSantis (FL) inflicted division and pain in major U.S. cities like Chicago and New York by bussing newly arrived migrants. Democrats never created a foil in the eyes of the public despite so many to pick from; there was never a hero story where a leader stood up to the antagonizers and their lying muses. When the election came around, Democrats still had no story to tell or a bold vision for what the future could hold.
The numbers tell this story starkly. In the 2024 cycle, Republicans outspent Democrats by more than 5-to-1 on immigration messaging in battleground states, investing $573 million compared to Democrats’ $107 million on television ads. Additionally, between January and October 2024, right-wing media produced 43,000 negative immigration mentions, generating over 176.4 billion impressions and an estimated $5.5 billion in publicity value, according to a Catalyze/Citizens analysis via Critical Mentions. Combine the volume of advertising and right-wing media focus on immigration with anti-immigrant online misinformation (such as Elon Musk posting over 1,300 posts on noncitizens voting and other anti-immigrant messaging, garnering 10 billion views), the totality of disinformation on one issue is unprecedented and unmatched.
There is no evidence of Democratic advertising or high volume socialization of progressive or “liberal” immigration messaging. Despite my overtures to Democratic operatives, committees and campaigns to move past the bipartisan border bill and border security-only talking points, most candidates and campaigns largely ignored the issue or tried to sound like a softer version of Trump. Both strategies have never proven to be fruitful, neither has deporting people en masse to prove a point.
For years, I’ve argued that Democrats must champion this issue by talking about what they’ve done, what their vision for a modern, resilient immigration system looks like, and clearly contrasting themselves from Trump and Republicans. Instead, we have a Democratic Party that has all but lost their pen in writing America’s immigration story.
Sadly, now we have new and powerful authors who can delete and rewrite the story for profit and political gain.
President-elect Trump’s new age kleptocracy and orbit of influencers includes Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other ultra-rich tech giants and venture capitalists. They’re not exactly a bastion of pragmatic immigration reform enthusiasts, and they’re certainly not interested in policies and regulations on social media and artificial intelligence. Nope, these apparent sanctimonious free speech fighters are willing to risk our democracy and public safety to line their pockets.
With Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to eliminate fact-checkers across Meta platforms and roll back moderation of harmful content while also naming UFC President Dana White to its board of directors, we are in a dire spiral – and as always the most vulnerable are at the frontlines of pain. The tragic lesson of Springfield, OH is not just one of candidates fueling misinformation, but that of the unchecked powers of social media companies to allow disinformation tactics and their algorithms to jeopardize the safety and lives of immigrants and their neighbors. What’s more, the risks and dangers of AI have yet to be fully measured or predicted. Already, deep fakes and other misinformation content and efforts using AI have begun spreading and affecting children, individuals and the political landscape. There is no law in place to mitigate or regulate AI or the companies generating AI tools – the impact could be devastating to our democracy, immigration sentiment, and channels of information.
The matrimony of MAGA and big tech will only fuel an addiction to hate – and their primary target is immigrants in America.
So when I hear Democrats decry the left on immigration, I am left baffled, but mostly annoyed because what’s ahead is far more dangerous and the people who will be the first to contend with this threat is an underinvested movement, standing as the first line of defense for working families – the very families that have proudly contributed to this great experiment we call America.
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