Collecting #nobannowall

I am collecting data on #nobannowall to observe the reactions of @POTUS policies and executive orders on immigrants and refugees.

Growing up in the Rust Belt in a community where nearly every adult worked in a factory and being raised by refugees,  I am in ways connected to both the anti and pro-refugee and immigrant movement. #Nobannowall reflects upon conflicting and sometimes, confusing sentiments in my hometown, including resentment towards new immigrants who were trying to compete for the fewer number of factory jobs and support from those who believe that a growing immigrant population will halt decline in the city. Analyzing #nobannowall requires the recognizing of the stories of decline and the desire for Americentric policies while understanding why Americans still support immigrants despite decline.

I assumed that most of the tweets would express disapproval of the recent U.S. travel ban against the seven dominantly Muslim countries. Most of the tweets did express disapproval of this executive order and  specifically mentioned Muslims (using hashtags calling the executive order a #MuslimBan) and demonstrated support for “immigrants” and “refugees.” Surprisingly, almost no tweets mentioned the wall between the U.S.-Mexican border that Donald Trump intends to build. Overall, the tweets did not explain what the policy was or specially who was affected, but more so, expressed people’s feelings towards immigrants and refugees. For example,  @RepKihuen was retweeted “@POTUS I was once undocumented – now, I’m a member of Congress. #NoBanNoWall” and @SouthernDems_ retweeted @TheDemocrats: RT to remind Trump that he has no mandate to carry out his unconstitutional, immoral Muslim ban. #NoBanNoWall https://t.c…” Tweets such as these do not provide much context: Why is the executive order unconstitutional? Who is affected? I returned to continue working on the lab six hours after running TAGS and am surprised that there were only 2,364 tweets with this hashtag since I am overloaded by the number of tweets on the topic on my personal wall. There doesn’t seem to be one account that is using the hashtag either, indicating perhaps that the hashtag is used widely.

Stories quoting #nobannowall tended to report on anti-travel ban movements and protests across the U.S. while stories on the topic of the travel ban and the proposed U.S.-Mexican border wall focused on the describing how the Trump administration was handling the immigrant “crisis.” One story quoting #nobannowall discussed the widespread protests across the U.S. while another story reported on celebrity models whose mother is an immigrant participating in a protest in New York City. The environment was mostly anti-Trump, expressing perhaps that #nobannowall was used mostly by Trump dissenters. I found more articles on the proposed U.S.-Mexican border wall when I searched the topic of immigrants than I did the hashtag, demonstrating perhaps that though the story was covered by major media outlets, Twitter users were more concerned about the travel ban aspect of the hashtag.

Ten years ago, all of the rhetoric on immigration focused on illegal immigrants especially those of Hispanic background. It also centered around the economic implications of such immigration and less on the danger or potential terrorism threats that the U.S. would face. Unlike today, there was no mention of “religion” or even, “political” situations in countries where immigrants originated from; however, the idea that immigrants are here in the U.S. to only “secure a better future” remains the top counterpoint to anti-immigration policies. I found it surprising that the crackdown of illegal immigration started long before Trump proposed a “wall” along the U.S.-Mexican border. In one of my historical articles, Federal agents were criticized for luring illegal workers by requiring them to participate in a health and safety information session. Health advocates became concerned that illegal immigrants would avoid health clinics and worker safety sessions in the future. In another article, the author discussed the economic implications of illegal immigrants – they often contribute to the U.S. economy by working for low wages and spending money in the U.S. while some cost the government a lot for incarceration and receiving certain benefits.

The process that I conducted aimed to capture the different temporal “envelopes” of the issue which is needed to connecting to the liveliness of the issue. Scraping tweets allowed me to follow the issue in minute by minute moments while reading articles allowed me to understand the issue within a longer time frame – from a week to as long as ten years. Each step helped me “stabilize” the issue. However, I felt that the TAGS program and the reading of articles from different days was not enough. Marres and Welteverde discussed that scraping software often include more data analysis features (ex. word frequency. Even though I tried hard to skim through all of the tweets, my brain could not process all of the tweets to develop extremely detailed analysis.

Works Cited

Articles on #nobannowall

Bacon, John. 2017. “Protests against Trump’s immigration plan rolling in more than 30 cities.” USA Today, February 1. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/29/homeland-security-judges-stay-has-little-impact-travel-ban/97211720/

Tietjen, Alexa. 2017. “Gigi and Bella Hadid join the #NoBanNoWall march in NYC.” Los Angeles Times, February 1.  http://www.latimes.com/fashion/la-ig-hadid-sisters-protest-20170130-htmlstory.html

Articles on topic

Blake, Aaron. 2017. “The Trump team bizarrely quibbles with calling its travel ban a ‘ban’ – and then backs down.” Washington Post, February 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/31/trumps-team-is-mad-people-are-calling-the-travel-ban-a-ban-even-though-they-also-called-it-a-ban/?utm_term=.10911c8787ad

2017. “Can Trump Make Mexico Pay For the Wall? Not The Ways That He And The GOP Are Considering.” Fortune, January 31. http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2017/01/31/can-trump-make-mexico-pay-for-the-wall/#57009ad663cd

Historical articles

Greenhouse, Steven. 2006. “U.S. Officials Defend Ploys to Catch Illegal Immigrants.” New York Times, February 11. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/11/us/us-officials-defend-ploys-to-catch-immigrants.html

Hanson, Victor Davis. 2006. “Analyzing illegal immigration.” Chicago Tribune, March 31. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0603310310mar31-story.html

Reading

Marres, Noortje, and Esther Weltevrede. 2013. “Scraping the Social?” Journal of Cultural Economy 6 (3): 313–35.