COVID-19 and Immigration: An Us Versus Them mentality

Transcript of this TikTok video

We analyzed a short video posted on the social media platform TikTok that falsely claims that immigration across the border is a significant driver in fueling the COVID-19 pandemic. It was published on August 5th 2021, and heavily features a clip of a Fox News interview with Florida Governor Ron Desantis aired on the same date. In the clip, Desantis argues that Biden’s “open border policy” is bringing in dozens of new COVID-19 variants and is responsible for a surge in the virus in border states. The TikTok video itself also includes additional text to mean to bolster the remarks made in the interview, most notably stating that the Biden administration let in “7000 COVID-19 positive immigrants across the border.”

In reality, these remarks lack evidence to support them, and the specific fears they raise are unfounded. This type of rhetoric cultivates an old and extremely dangerous disinformation strategy that perpetuates dehumanizing ideologies, such as xenophobia and racism: the “us vs them” mentality.

Section 1.1: Us vs. Them

Simply put, an Us vs. Them mentality is a strategy which artificially creates two opposing sides of a situation in order to utilize in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. In-group and out-group thinking is a richer field of study than we can comprehensively cover here, but there are some important aspects we can focus on. It’s a mentality that’s very powerful (DeDrue et al, 2016), can be seen at very young ages (Dunham et al, 2011), and is surprisingly easy to evoke (Locksley et al, 1980). While this mentality is often specifically encouraged around socio-political differences (political affiliation, ethnicity, gender, etc), the psychological mechanism can be triggered around virtually any arbitrary trait (Lewis & Bates, 2010) – meaning that the ability for people to be psychologically separated into groups doesn’t prove that there’s any natural logic to that separation.

There are some key tactics that are used as part of this strategy, all of which can be seen in the TikTok video:

Fearmongering – this is a tactic that involves cultivating fear of something that there is no actual reason to feel threatened by. In this instance, while COVID-19 was absolutely something to be taken seriously, the idea that immigration was seriously contributing to the spread of the virus is without merit. Examples in the video include:

• “Every variant on this planet, some we don’t even know about, are absolutely coming into our country that way.”
• “And they say of the, my, the illegal border crossers that they come in contact with, a majority of them are telling our guys that they want to end up in Florida.”
• “Obviously it’s an issue beyond Covid because it’s about the security of our country.”

Oversimplification – this is when a complex issue or cause is reduced to a simplistic phrase or meaning, often consciously and with the intent to make it easy to disseminate. In the video, Biden’s COVID-19 policy is reduced simply to vague demands of “Americans,” and his border policy is reduced to anyone who wants being allowed free entry and access, with seemingly no restrictions. Both of these are gross misrepresentations, and can be seen in the video with:

• “[B]ut you can’t impose restrictions on Americans. And say, ‘Americans have to do all these things’ and then just willy-nilly let in everyone from around the world.”

Scapegoating – this involves blaming a person or group that cannot defend themself for a problem they did not actually cause (From Reinhardt et al, 2023). COVID-19 did not first reach America through immigrants crossing the border, but rather when an American citizen returned, very legally, from a trip abroad (Holshue et al, 2020). Nor were immigrants or immigration anywhere close to a leading cause of the spread of COVID-19 in America. However, the video implies exactly the opposite, blaming immigrants with lines like:

• “I mean, this is a guy that ran for president saying he was gonna shut down the virus… And yet what is he doing? He’s bringing in people from over a hundred different countries across the southern border.”

A person or group typically tries to cultivate an Us vs Them mentality because it makes people much easier to influence (Laursen & Faur, 2022). But the effects are extreme, and arguably encourage the worst side of human behavior to the detriment of all.

In a generally negative sense, it creates groupthink (Baron, 2005). Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a group collectively has such a strong desire to maintain conformity that their decision-making becomes irrational and dysfunctional. Critical evaluation of decisions, a key component of improvement, is thrown out in favor of immediate shared consensus. This can be absolutely detrimental to the functioning and success of an organization or society.

In a more specifically insidious sense, an us vs them mentality can create tribalism, where people are organized into groups defined by common identities and loyalty to the tribe over all else. This in turn encourages stereotyping, or the human tendency to attribute a single or a few traits to an entire group of people. Stereotyping can be dangerously dehumanizing, as it inherently disregards diversity and individual complexity, as well as being a precursor for prejudicial ideologies like racism and sexism.

Those ideologies are then solidified through collective narcissism (de Zavala et al, 2009). Collective narcissism is the tendency to exaggerate the positive image and importance of a group to which one belongs. It’s often closely correlated to ethnocentrism (Bizumic and Duckitt, 2008) and exacerbates intergroup aggression (de Zavala, 2011) (DeDrue et al, 2016). All of these things combined has lead humanity to some of its darkest moments.

Fortunately, there are ways to help prevent phenomenon like this, beyond simply not engaging with content looking to stoke those flames. Having diversity, in any type of social group and especially in decision-making bodies, can be very helpful in stymieing the psychological pitfalls we’ve talked about above (Smith, 2020).

Not only is there absolutely no evidence that immigration (of any kind) significantly exacerbated the spread of COVID-19 in America (Farley, 2021), there is decent evidence that the people who held that view were actually causing the real harm.

Take, as an example, the state of Mississippi. According to the PEW research center (2019), it is one of the five states with the lowest amount of undocumented immigrants. If immigration was a major cause of the spread of COVID-19, then, you would expect Mississippi to have one of the lowest infection rates. In 2021, though, it ranked third for COVID-19 infections (Center for Disease Control, 2021). As it turns out, there was arguably a correlating variable: at that time, Mississippi was the state with the lowest percentage of its population vaccinated, with less than 36% of its residents fully vaccinated (Center for Disease Control, 2021).

There is an extra irony to Governor Desantis spreading this specific type of disinformation, as he has grown to be a very public face of opposition against COVID-19 containment measures, especially vaccinations (Scott, 2022). In 2022 the Florida Surgeon General – in conjunction with Desantis – specifically and publicly recommended that children and young men not get the COVID-19 vaccine, counter to CDC guidelines (Li and Duarte, 2022). In 2023 it was revealed that the Florida vaccination report used to justify this contrary recommendation left out some key information on COVID-19 deaths (O’Donnell, 2023).

In the end, this strategy is depressingly old. Using “others”, especially immigrants, as an easy scapegoat in times of crisis and mass illness is not new (Wu, 2020). Not only is this terribly dehumanizing, but it’s also harmful to the population at large, because it ignores the true causes of the issue.