The latest poll results from Gallup published on Wednesday concludes that Americans view immigration as the nation’s top problem, but when one looks at the actual answers shared with respondents, the poll equated “illegal aliens” with the topic of immigration, suggesting that some respondents might have been reacting to “illegal aliens” as the nation’s top problem and not necessarily immigration in general.
As the data from the Gallup poll clearly shows:
Even when Gallup broke down responses by Republicans and Democrats, the “immigration/illegal aliens” label is also used:
Use of the label “illegal aliens” and equating it to immigration raised some serious questions about how the poll is being framed. As our founder tweeted out:
How have we created a society that criminalizes #immigration? Here is one example: see the language @Gallup uses in latest poll. It literally is equating immigration to "illegal aliens" as an answer. pic.twitter.com/UDOrOh1w4V
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) November 20, 2018
In addition, there’s this as well:
Further to the dehumanising language used notice how everything else on this list is intangible. When we chose to study attitudes to ‘immigration’ real people are stripped of their human status and reproduced as non human subjects. https://t.co/x5vQimGlPA
— Jo Biglin (@JoBiglinUoM) November 20, 2018
And let’s not get started on the fact that terms like “illegal aliens” have a controversial history. Why does a group like Gallup continue to use term like these that so many media outlets have rejected for years? (And sorry, just because the government uses it is not an answer.)
Latino Rebels contacted Gallup for comment about the poll and why it framed the topics as it did. As of this posting, Gallup hasn’t responded. If if does, we will share what it says.
