The covid-19 pandemic on anti-immigration and xenophobic discourse in europe and the United States

Abstract

In the last decades, anti-immigration discourse had been growing in some European countries and the United States. Migration as a problem was already a recurring argument in migration guidelines in some national states and it was also a political flag for right-wing formations. The objective of this research is to analyze how the health contingency by COVID-19 has influenced the political discourse on immigration. The investigation was based on a hemerographic review, including information from newspapers, news agen-cies and international organizations, carried out from March to Septem-ber 2020. The results obtained from this research suggest that the pandemic has strengthened the anti-immigration positions, since it offers a manichean argument which might encourage xenophobic feelings and actions in the host societies.