Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream Anti-immigrant rhetoric in media and politics
The hateful rhetoric around the immigration debate has gone beyond the rallies, lobbying, and media appearances by anti-immigration advocates. A number of media personalities in television and radio, as well as political leaders, have adopted the same language when discussing immigration issues in this country. From national TV correspondent Lou Dobbs to more extreme political commentator Patrick Buchananto local radio personalities to members of Congress such as Tom Tancredo and Steve King, the use of anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner rhetoric has permeated the culture in our country.
An individual who influenced several of these figures is the late Madeleine Cosman, a self-described “medical lawyer” and propagandist who routinely demonized immigrants as a diseased, criminal element. Mainstream media commentators and politicians have utilized Cosman’s “research” to validate false allegations that immigrants coming to the U.S. carry a number of deadly and harmful diseases. In spite of her questionable data, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published one of Cosman’s articles in its Spring 2005 issue. Her mainstream exposure added a veneer of legitimacy to the anti-immigrant movement.
The following examples illustrate how this type of inflammatory rhetoric has been amplified in the media and in cultural and political arenas:
Under the guise of delivering news and commentary, Lou Dobbs, host of Lou Dobbs Tonight, a weekday show on CNN, frequently spreads false propaganda about how immigrants are harming the United States. On one show, he claimed that “unscreened illegal immigrants” were partly to blame for an alleged 7,000 cases of leprosy in the United States from 2002-2005. When confronted with the United States Department of Health and Human Services’s findings of 7,029 cases over the past 30 years, not three years, Dobbs refused to recant his statement. His correspondent cited Madeleine Cosman as the source of the false statistic.
Former presidential candidate and advisor, MSNBC commentator, and columnist Patrick Buchananhas long exploited anti-immigrant sentiment. In his 2006 book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, Buchanan fills his pages with xenophobia and conspiratorial allegations. In the book, he explains that “the crisis of the West is of a collapsing culture and vanishing peoples, as a Third World that grows by 100 million people -- the equivalent of a new Mexico -- every eighteen months mounts the greatest invasion in the history of the world. If we do not shake off our paralysis, the West comes to an end.”
Lynn Woolley, a Texas radio personality, is the host of an AM radio show syndicated throughout the country. At a November 2006 rally in Austin, Texas, Woolley warned that “gate crashers” will “be running this country and hoisting the Mexican flag…in Washington.” In a June 2007 article, he sounded the alarm that “Illegal Immigration Can Make You Sick” by asserting (incorrectly) that “hoards [sic] of illegals crash our border without medical screenings,” carrying “tuberculosis, Chagas disease, leprosy, Dengue fever, polio, malaria, hepatitis, and Marburg disease.” The source of this claim was Madeleine Cosman.
Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo* (R-CO) has generated much attention through exploiting the immigration issue. He chaired the Congressional Caucus on Immigration Reform and became a leading national spokesperson for anti-immigration views. Tancredo outlines these views in his 2006 book, In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security, which he dedicated to Madeleine Cosman, whose work Tancredo cites in the book. Under “health threats posed by illegal immigration,” he lists Chagas disease (a potentially fatal parasitic disease), dengue fever, polio, and malaria. He also promotes the fallacy that 7,000 cases of leprosy plagued the United States in the past three years. He claims, “Leprosy now is endemic to the Northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from Brazil, the Caribbean, India, and Mexico.” Tancredo publicly supports the actions of border vigilante groups and appears with them at anti-immigrant events. He has a long-standing relationship with the Minutemen. The Minutemen are a loose network of local chapters around the country, whose primary goal is to keep “undocumented” immigrants from Mexico out of the United States. The more extreme Minutemen chapters advocate patrols of the Mexican-American border by armed volunteers.
Representing Iowa in the United States House of Representatives, Congressman Steve King* (R-IA) has characterized immigrants – both legal and undocumented – as criminals and disease-carriers. He has spoken alongside leaders of border vigilante groups and advocates a border “wall” topped with electrified wire to stop what he has called a “slow motion Holocaust” of undocumented immigration into the United States. King addressed the House of Representatives and asserted that undocumented immigration “a slow-rolling, slow-motion terrorist attack on the United States.” He suggested that because undocumented immigrants comprise 28% of the prison population, “28 percent of the murders, 28 percent of the rapes, 28 percent of the violence and the assaults and battery, first- and second-degree murder and also manslaughter attacks are committed by criminal aliens.”
Featured Video: "Madeleine Cosman, Mexican predators"
This video, shared on YouTube, presents the late Madeleine Cosman, a self-described “medical lawyer” and propagandist, demonizing immigrants as diseased criminals in a 2005 speech.
*ADL takes no position in favor of, or in opposition to, candidates running for office, including Alan Keyes and Representatives Tancredo and King.
An individual who influenced several of these figures is the late Madeleine Cosman, a self-described “medical lawyer” and propagandist who routinely demonized immigrants as a diseased, criminal element. Mainstream media commentators and politicians have utilized Cosman’s “research” to validate false allegations that immigrants coming to the U.S. carry a number of deadly and harmful diseases. In spite of her questionable data, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published one of Cosman’s articles in its Spring 2005 issue. Her mainstream exposure added a veneer of legitimacy to the anti-immigrant movement.
