My subtitle:
Nearly half of US Catholics believe it is not our responsibility to resettle refugees
Most of the media blames the change in attitude on Trump’s rhetoric, but I think there has been a sea change in media reporting. There is more and more news available to the general public about the kinds of things I mentioned in my previous post this morning—stories about refugees scamming our welfare programs for example that previously were not published, but are now spread widely by social media!
Ten years ago (nearly 11 now) when I first began writing this blog, stories in the media about refugees were in the genre I called ‘Refugees see first snow’ stories! All were meant to paint refugees in only the most glowing terms.
Now we do see more crime stories like food stamp fraud, Medicaid fraud etc, but also stories about refugee-perpetrated violent crimes and terrorism in the US and around the world.
Here is USA Today on the Pew numbers:
Fewer Americans believe U.S. should accept refugees
Fewer Americans believe the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees, a shift that has been spurred by President Trump’s efforts to limit them from entering the country, according to a poll released Thursday.
More than half of Americans — 51% — still believe the United States should welcome immigrants fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, according to the poll conducted by the non-partisan Pew Research Center. But that number is down from 56% during a similar survey in February 2017.
Continue reading “New data from Pew: Americans turning more negative on refugee resettlement”
