Popular Media Vastly Overstates Criminality Among Immigrant Men Concludes Define American Study

'NCIS: New Orleans', image courtesy of CBS

Define American is an immigration nonprofit founded by Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas with the goal of examining how immigrants and immigration is portrayed in popular culture. The organization has released Immigrants and Immigration: A Guide for Entertainment Professionals as a 19-page brief that examines current key issues in immigration law including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the U visa for victims of violent crimes.

“Immigration is the most controversial yet least understood issue in America today. That’s why it’s crucial for Define American to publish a resource for members of the entertainment industry to better understand immigration and more accurately portray immigrants,” says Elizabeth Grizzle Voorhees, who joined Define American as its inaugural entertainment media director last summer. “These tools are written specifically for creative professionals, and we hope they will lead to increased representation and more humanized storytelling in television and film.”

Define American has also released a scorecard on the state of immigration representation on television, taken from The Opportunity Agenda’s study of 40 popular broadcast, cable and streaming shows that aired between April 2014 and June 2016.

The new report found that immigrants were underrepresented with just 6 percent of roles in the sampling (while comprising 17 percent of the U.S. population). Yet, they are overrepresented as criminals, with half of Latino and a quarter of Middle Eastern immigrant characters shown engaging in criminal activity. In real life, U.S. census and American Community Survey data has found that immigrant males between the ages of 18 and 39 are approximately half as likely to be incarcerated as their native-born counterparts, writes The Hollywood Reporter.

The report offers key ways that the entertainment industry can convey a more accurate account of the American immigrant experience, one very much under attack in today's America.