As we take a look at a handful of immigration cartoons from the year 2011, it becomes clear that this issue isn’t lessening at all. It is just as prominent as ever. Here we are only three months into the year, and there is plenty of immigration controversy still buzzing.
This cartoon titled “Profiling” seems to be more in favor of immigration and immigrants themselves. It depicts a division amongst the American officials and leads us to believe that there is so much controversy in the government that it prevents any logical solution to be found. Here we have two Arizona immigration officials critiquing and criticizing a federal official. It depicts these Arizona officials as “high and mighty” or stuck up. The cartoon also gives the impression that our federal officials are not fit for their jobs, on both a literal and figurative level. The U.S. federal official is obese, out of shape, and as the Arizona officials point out, neglectful and irresponsible. On the flip side of the spectrum it makes it seem as if immigrants shouldn’t have that hard of a time entering the country since our officials are neglectful to their duties. That could present a positive or negative framing of immigrants depending on which side of the spectrum you stand on.
In the above cartoon we see a significant difference in the view of immigrants and the issue of whether or not immigration should be more strict or more lenient. We have two different individuals posting “WANTED” posters. One is a business man, the other is an immigration control official. They have posted the EXACT same picture of a man on their posters, but the discrepancy in their captions is astounding. The views each has of immigrants is like night and day. It also shows the division in our country concerning the topic of immigration. Half of our country feels that immigrants work harder and are beneficial, so they have no ill feelings towards them. The other half of the country feels that immigrants are stealing jobs from American citizens and should be deported to help bring our country up economically.
This final cartoon summarizes the confusion and division within our country, and quite honestly, the catch 22 we have put ourselves in as a nation. We have The Statue of Liberty proclaiming to the world to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” and at the same time we have a tsunami tidal wave about to crash down on Lady Liberty. Our country declares that we will accept people, and The Statue of Liberty has always been a symbol of open arms. Yet it seems with every day more and more Americans are screaming to remove those immigrants back to their homelands. Perhaps this conflict is a problem within ourselves.
