{"id":27716,"date":"2025-11-15T13:27:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27716"},"modified":"2025-11-15T13:27:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:27:49","slug":"blame-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27716","title":{"rendered":"Blame Immigrants!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

As many people have written, one way powerful people and institutions stay<\/em> in power is by scapegoating immigrants. Dick Dowdell sums it up well<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When wages stagnate, when health premiums rise faster than paychecks, when rent eats a third of take\u2011home income, people look for a reason. The top 0.01% \u2014 and the political entrepreneurs who orbit them \u2014 are more than happy to supply one.<\/p>\n

Immigrants become the universal scapegoat: they are easy to see, easy to caricature, and, critically, politically voiceless. If you can convince the public that migrants, not monopolies; refugees, not stock buybacks; asylum seekers, not tax arbitrage, are the cause of their shrinking slice, you can keep the real machinery running without interruption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This general strategy is nothing new – in the U.S., it’s at least as old as slavery.<\/a> Cristina Jim\u00e9nez, herself an immigrant, writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This is exactly what the president and his administration are doing. They are blaming immigrants<\/a> for the costs of eggs, housing, a failing healthcare system and an economy that benefits only the rich. They are scapegoating immigrants to distract us from this administration\u2019s cruelty and fealty to rich men like Elon Musk<\/a>, who are stealing our resources, our data<\/a> and our money while the majority of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad\u201d immigrants being the nation\u2019s scapegoat is not new,\u00a0but the faces and cultures of who we define as such have. In the 1920s, during the Prohibition Era, German, Italian and Irish immigrants were also labeled as immoral, un-American drunks<\/a> and blamed for threatening public welfare and deteriorating American values. Ironically, many of those same immigrants have now become \u201cwhite\u201d in America\u2019s story, and some of their descendants are now saying the same things about people like me, and calling for the mass deportation of immigrants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only thing startling about the current round of scapegoating is how overt and gross it is. Alarming and obviously ridiculous stories about immigrants – like the claim that they are stealing and eating our housepets – are made, not by anonymous nobodies on the internet, but by the leeches bleeding the country from the White House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s infuriating. And it harms America – bad morally, bad culturally, and bad economically. We will all be worse off for it. I’m just hoping that eventually the damage Republicans are doing can be undone or at least mitigated.<\/p>\n

\n

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON<\/strong><\/p>\n

This cartoon has four panels, all set in an industrial-looking urban area.<\/p>\n

PANEL 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two characters – a wealthy businessman, and a worker – are speaking. The businessman is dropping a couple of coins into the worker’s palm, and the worker is angry.<\/p>\n

BOSS: Here’s this week’s pay.<\/p>\n

WORKER: I can’t live on this, you greedy-<\/p>\n

PANEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bossman puts his arm around the worker’s shoulders and points to another man standing a little distance off. That man, who has brown skin, is facing another way and reading his phone.<\/p>\n

BOSS: Whoa! Listen, friend, I’m on your side! It’s not me keeping your pay low! It’s immigrants like that guy!<\/p>\n

PANEL 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bossman gets right in the worker’s face as he rattles off things he’s blaming the immigrant for. The Worker looks panicked.<\/p>\n

BOSS: He’s stealing the good jobs! Taking all the housing! He’s lazy! Doesn’t even work! Living off welfare! Eating your pets! Doing all the crime!<\/p>\n

PANEL 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

The worker is now lying prone on the pavement, with the Bossman’s foot on his back. The worker angrily shakes his fist at the immigrant, and yells.<\/p>\n

WORKER: HEY YOU! YEAH, YOU! GET OUT!<\/p>\n

BOSS: Good boy.<\/p>\n

CHICKEN FAT WATCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Chicken fat” is an archaic cartoonists’ term for unimportant and often silly things drawn into comics.<\/p>\n

The signs in the background are filled with references to the classic children’s novel Charlotte’s Web<\/em>: “Some Pig,” “Terrific,” “Radiant,” and “Humble” are things Charlotte writes about Wilber the pig with her webbing. The names of three characters from Charlotte’s Web<\/em> – Wilbur, Templeton Rat, and Fern – are also on signage.<\/p>\n

In panel one, a rat examines a beer bottle on the sidewalk. In panel two, the rat guzzles from the bottle. In panel four, the rat has passed out with a big stupid grin.<\/p>\n

In panel one, a scrap of paper on the sidewalk has a picture of Matt Feazell’s character Cynicalman<\/a>. A newspaper lying on the sidewalk, entitled “The Daily Weekly,” has a headline that says “Study: 91% of Headlines on Litter Not Germane.” A subheadline says “Subheadlines also found meaningless.”<\/p>\n

\n

Blame The Immigrants! | Patreon<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many people have written, one way powerful people and institutions stay in power is by scapegoating immigrants. Dick Dowdell sums it up well: When wages stagnate, when health premiums rise faster than paychecks, when rent eats a third of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-comics","category-immigration-migrant-rights-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27718,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27716\/revisions\/27718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}