Covering Immigrants and Immigration

The number of immigrants living in the United States reached a record 43.2 million, or 13.4 percent of the population, in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center. Immigration levels have fluctuated widely over the past 150 years, as laws and attitudes toward immigrants have changed. Restrictive immigration policies in the 1920s, coupled with the Great Depression and World War II, led to a sharp decline in new immigrants and by 1970 only 5 percent of the U.S. population was foreign born. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Covering immigrant communities can pose challenges, particularly if journalists do not speak the language or understand the culture of the people they are trying to report on. Immigrants are often distrustful of media – often for good reason because news organizations have a long history of ignoring or misrepresenting them.