Beyond Trump and the immigration stalemate: how big media corporations limit latino news access and support anti- immigrant politicians who misinform their constituents

Abstract

The massive Latino outrage against Donald Trump´s anti-immigrant rhetoric and the subsequent severing of business relations by large media corporations, first by Univision and then followed by NBC/Comcast, represents a historic milestone in the national manifestation of the surging potential of Latino economic and political power. The loud break-up between Trump and some large media corporations with newfound righteous indignation is only the visible tip of a much more involved and long-standing relationship between media/tech corporate business strategies, the financial support of anti-immigrant politicians and the misconceptions of immigrants which these politicians deliberately propagate with their base. An analysis of this ongoing corporate support for the electoral campaigns of sitting anti-immigrant politicians, as well as other corporate media and tech business strategies that limit Latino owned media expansion and general access to affirmatively accurate information on immigrants, goes a long way to explain the dynamics of misinformation, political posturing and electoral power calculus that feeds the stalemate in immigration reform. This analysis also identifies rich opportunities for Latino and pro-immigrant mobilization strategies for unraveling this toxic stalemate blocking immigration reform which would be strongly positive for the U.S. economy and social structures.