By Santiago Bracho
Across the world, 2025 appears to be a year in which politics was dominated by anti-migration movements and governments. The call for mass deportations was spread by President Trump in the USA when he started his second term at the start of the year and has been repeated by far-right parties across Europe and Latin America. This international phenomenon has received an intense push through media. With false narratives often going unchallenged, these anti-migrant views have become mainstream.
Crime blamed on migrants
One common talking point anti-migration advocates and politicians push is the belief that rise in crime is caused by migration. This belief can be seen internationally, even when the data does not support these claims.
Within the UK, Robert Jenrick, a Conservative opposition MP has created a social media campaign, where he commonly claims Afghan nationals are 20 times more likely to commit sex crimes than British nationals. This specific claim was originated by the think tank Centre for Migration Control, which the Good Law Project has found “is run by Robert Bates, who volunteered for Reform in the 2024 general election”.
Furthermore, analysis by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has found this statistic is disingenuous. Nevertheless, Robert Jenrick and other anti-migrant actors have continued to spread these claims without fact-checking them. One of the platforms they use is X, whose CEO Elon Musk has spoken in support of anti-migration parties such as the far-right AFD in Germany.
Across the Atlantic in Chile, the right-wing, anti-migration candidate Antonio Kast has won the 2025 presidential elections primarily on a campaign emphasising security and deportation of irregular migrants. In a BBC interview, Daniel Johnson Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Chilean organisation Paz Ciudadana, said that 63 per cent of the Chilean public name crime and insecurity as their top concern. Although, violent crimes in Chile have steadily dropped since 2022, after a post-pandemic peak, the population still see crime as their top concern. Furthermore, Rodriguez, claims the right-wing in Chile has been able to capitalise on this fear, through mass media campaigns linking it directly to illegal migration, particularly from Venezuela. During Kast’s campaign he promised to deport all irregular migrants within Chile, which critics say is a nearly impossible task.
In Australia, the issue of migration has been raised in some media following the mass shooting at Bondi Beach on the 14th of December that claimed the lives of 15 people. The Online Hate Prevention Institute, said on the 17th of December that it has identified 265 problematic items of online content, with many expressing anti-immigration views. Multiple users responded to the attacks by claiming that immigrants, were ultimately to blame for the attacks.
Fuelling fears
As anti-migration actors continue to push the belief migration has caused a rise in crime or violence, they often push false statistics, which are based on complex figures and unrealistic solutions.
Crucially, one of the more insidious messages by anti-migration actors across the media, is that migrants and foreigners are predisposed to crime due to intrinsic cultural differences. This “othering” of migrants occurs across ethnic, religious and cultural reasons, and it is an intrinsic part of the anti-migrant narrative across various nations.
In Chile, the animosity towards Venezuelan refugees and migrants is often connected to darker skin, in contrast to the traditional view of Chilean identity which presents their population as an ethnically white population of European descent. Similarly, the view that Latin American people are intrinsically different to the predominantly white, English-speaking American population has also been promoted by American media. A 2023 study on Latin American media representation in the USA by Hector Rendon found that a “long history of underrepresentation and misrepresentations in the media” has caused a pervasive view of the Latin American people being a “threat”.
One of the effects of these current media narratives is a mass generalisation believing war-stricken nations are a result of a flawed or violent culture. The othering across media channels of these people, does not even see them as victims trying to flee these conditions, but rather part of a society and civilisation which is essentially violent and unfunctional, which these migrants will “export” into the host countries.
In an hour-long interview with Douglas Carswell by GB News, the former UK MP called Eritrea a “dump” specifically because it has “a lack of civic capacity”. Therefore, the reason for Eritrea’s current conditions, are not uniquely due to its totalitarian government, but a larger culture which he claims in unfunctional and violent. The inference being that all Eritreans carry views anti-thetical to Western democracies and spread them when they migrate. This form of othering across the media not only reduces and vilifies foreign cultures, but it also erases migrants distinct and diverse views.
Many migrants or asylum seekers who might be part of a persecuted sexual orientation or religious minority are reduced to the same views as those of the government which is trying to exterminate them.
Attacks on migrants
It must also be noted that these anti-migration views have led to violent attacks towards migrant populations. Examples include the summer riots in 2024 which were fuelled by social media misinformation. Rioters in multiple cities targeted mosques and hotels housing migrants in the worst unrest in the UK in more than a decade.
Possibly the most extreme example is the deportation of 1.3 million Afghans in 2025, mostly from Iran and Pakistan. Notably, Pakistan media, such as the English language Express Tribune, expressed anti-Afghan views in multiple reports and opinion columns clearly showing how biased and incendiary reporting has accelerated violent policies against migrants.
Combatting narratives
In order to combat these narratives, media must scrutinise the spurious claims made by anti-migration activists, provide counter points to their views and most crucially allow migrants and asylum seekers the ability to tell their stories and show the diversity of their views. They must be respected as individuals and be granted the same dignity any person would expect when sharing their lived experience.
Guidelines for reporting and countering hate speech against migrants
For journalists, journalism students, civil society activists, and those who want to combat hate speech , the Silence Hate project developed new and creative counternarratives, which can be found in the report: How to Report Migration and Counter Hate Speech Against Migrants and Refugees.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected] of the Media Diversity Institute (MDI).
