The Boy Who Changed the U.S. Immigration Debate

by Kelsey Oliver | 12 April 2018 | Coexistence/migration, Europe, Journalism/speech, Middle East/North Africa, News View, North and Central America

For the past few decades, it has been a public fact that the United States has not opened its doors to refugees and immigrants, especially from the Middle East and developing countries. The bias in refugee acceptance is so pronounced that one might even feel as though the inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads “No Muslims Need Apply.”

This is a general tendency in the United States, but not an absolute one. In fact, at one point in 2015, the U.S. appeared to show compassion, and Syrians shown in the news—unusually—were met with sympathy rather than scorn. At the center of this shift was the body of a young boy: Alan Kurdi, a Syrian child who drowned.

How Alan Kurdi Shook the Anti-Refugee Tilt of U.S. Politics

Kurdi’s death was tragic but not uncommon. His death was just one of more than 3,700 refugee drownings in the Mediterranean in 2015. The following year, as Europe’s migration crisis dragged on, similar cases exceeded 10,000. In September, Alan, his mother, and his brother drowned off the coast of Turkey while trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean. Shortly thereafter, their bodies, along with others, washed ashore on Turkish beaches. But the photograph of the boy’s body changed everything that followed.

Mural in memory of Alan Kurdi: Germany (Photo: Frank C. Müller [CC BY-SA 4.0])

It is astonishing that a single news story—one death—had the power to break through the hard wall of Islamophobia in the United States. It was also unimaginable that it would stall the anti-refugee political movement in Washington for months. Yet that is precisely what happened in the case of Alan Kurdi. Moreover, his death became the catalyst for a rare push toward refugee-friendly policy within the United States. Instead of merely funding refugee camps far from American shores as a substitute for admitting refugees, the policy aimed to accept about 10,000 Syrians into the U.S. While certainly a small number, it still represented a tenfold increase over previous plans.

This sympathetic shift in U.S. policy and public opinion could be seen in various forms, including on Twitter. Previously, through coverage of war and terrorism, people from Syria had been strongly framed as easily ignored “immigrants,” but almost overnight those same people came to be seen as sympathy-evoking “refugees.” And if they are refugees, then when they die en route to the West, a response is called for.

The Media’s Influence

And yet, it is hard to say that Alan Kurdi himself directly influenced U.S. attitudes and policy trends. Alan was not a prominent figure. He had no ties to politicians, had no wealth, and held no titles. The reason he was distinguished from all the other drowned children and became a symbol lies in the images of him and how those images were transmitted. In other words, thinking about the impact Alan Kurdi had on U.S. policy is tantamount to thinking about the impact the media had on U.S. policy.

Both internationally and domestically, the news media were actively reframing the migration crisis not as a source of hassle or threat, as before, but as a tragedy. The motives behind this reframing are unclear—whether born of humanitarian compassion or simply an attempt to boost sales by featuring highly charged images. But it is hard to deny that the reframing was intentional. Even conservative outlets in the U.S., such as The Wall Street Journal, swiftly appealed to sympathy in ways they had not before. Liberal publishers also quickly disseminated this new perspective.

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However, refugee-friendly coverage does not necessarily lead to refugee-friendly policy. In fact, the policies the U.S. government had been pursuing in the months before Kurdi’s death were very passive regarding the migration crisis. In particular, the Republican-controlled Congress took a firmly oppositional stance toward any legislation expanding the number of refugees from countries such as Syria. In the past, powerful lawmakers, such as Democrat Dick Durbin, drew up plans to expand admissions, but they faced fierce backlash from Republican members. They labeled Durbin and his supporters the “Jihad Caucus,” and denounced them in the media as defenders of a reserve army of terrorists. After months of no movement, and as it became clear that the Obama administration lacked the will or motivation to push more refugee-friendly policies, the individual efforts of people like Durbin faded away. This was abetted by the media’s failure to cover such matters in early to mid-2015.

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Even though reporting on Alan Kurdi’s death stirred compassion, there was no guarantee that pro-refugee policy would succeed. Yet it did. Over the following year, the Obama administration asked the State Department to admit about 10,000 Syrian refugees, and to raise the overall refugee cap from the previous 65,000 to 100,000. Many funds were established, refugee response centers were opened, and dialogue between the United States and Syria was attempted.

A Rebalancing of Political Forces

It is hard to imagine these outcomes without the media that supplied images of Kurdi and kept them on television screens and in print. If so, how did the media elicit such a response from policymakers?

Two answers suggest themselves.

First—and most importantly—the media shifted the balance of political power by amplifying the voices of those supporting refugees in Congress and beyond.

Before Kurdi’s death, Republicans held the decision-making power over how to respond to the migration crisis. This was not only because they held majorities in Congress but also because public interest in the migration crisis was extremely low. The main Syria-related topics at the time concerned ISIS and numerous acts of terror. The overall mood was one of fear, and perhaps all Syrians (and likely all Muslims) were seen as suspects. When a U.S. legislator derided refugee supporters as the “Jihad Caucus,” they were exploiting this fear. Open hostility was legitimized, and with the Obama administration unwilling to take up an unpopular policy agenda, refugee advocates appeared to have few opportunities to voice their views.

However, immediately after Kurdi’s death, the media realized this was a shocking, sympathy-arousing story, but to sell it they needed political backing—that is, comments from political leaders positioned to decide refugee policy. On the morning after Kurdi’s death, several U.S. news pieces featured favorable quotes from figures such as Dick Durbin. Presidential candidates used the media to make statements, and every candidate expressed remorse over Kurdi. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry did likewise. Even Republican lawmakers such as Lindsey Graham and Chris Dent argued in interviews that the United States should provide some assistance to these refugees. Dissenting opinions were scarce, except for those placed at the ends of articles or tucked between statements of support.

By providing opportunities for existing advocates to speak, and by presenting (whether or not it reflected reality) a tableau of strong support for refugees, the media was able to assemble a degree of political will. With that political will secured, policy was carried out, often by routing around a Republican-majority Congress.

United States Congress (Photo: Lawrence Jackson, White House)

That was the media’s most important contribution, but not the only one. The media also chipped away at the anti-refugee position.

Of course, Kurdi’s death did not purge anti-refugee forces from Congress or the administration. However, the media’s handling of the incident weakened the anti-refugee stance. This proceeded mainly because the media did not center the anti-refugee case. Former Senator Jeff Sessions and Senator John McCain were mentioned briefly in news articles, but in many cases outlets quoted them in ways that diminished their claims. The most common pattern was to treat their views as a point of reference, mentioning them only toward the end of an article. That said, more direct criticism—including from right-leaning newspapers—was featured on many opinion pages.

As time passed and it became clear that the pro-refugee position was dominant, the opposition in Congress increasingly lowered its voice and accepted the trend, and the balance of power ultimately reversed. All of this was brought about by a handful of photographs of a boy’s body.

Naturally, the role the media played in Kurdi’s case was noteworthy, but it is also notable that its influence was only fleeting. In November 2015, right in the midst of implementing the new plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees, the Paris attacks occurred. One hundred thirty people were killed, and a Syrian passport was found among the perpetrators’ belongings. This significantly eroded the sympathy generated by Kurdi’s death and helped anti-refugee forces regain strength in the U.S. Congress. While the plan launched in response to Kurdi’s death did not collapse, it fell just short.

As this case shows, the media can indeed wield great influence, but its potential is not unlimited and can be easily overturned.