Latinos in U.S. are increasingly growing frustrated and angry about migrants, the border
SACRAMENTO, CALIF.
Xochilt Nuñez is not the typical person who comes to mind when thinking about critics voicing their displeasure with U.S. immigration policy or the influx of migrants.
Nuñez crossed the border into California in 1999. She left her hometown of Morelia in Michoacán, Mexico, in search of a better life. The trip took her just over a week, during which she spent days without food and water.
Days after crossing, still exhausted and dehydrated, Nuñez began working at a carwash in San Diego. Soon after, she took on a second job in construction. Her hope then was to save enough money to own a home — her version of achieving the American Dream.
Today, people from around the world come across the U.S. border, many just as eager to work and potentially reach that dream.
Yet, Nuñez — now 53, a farmworker and a single mother of three — has mixed feelings about the overwhelming majority of these migrants. She uses words such as “anger,” “frustration” and “jealousy,” when asked to describe her feelings toward the migrants. All the while, she shares the same undocumented status and participates in grassroots activism for immigration reform.
“Right now, this immigration is out of control,” Nuñez said. “And now, they don’t come to work. They come to live from the system.”
She represents an increasing number of Latinos — both native born and undocumented — who, according to several polls, are concerned with the immigration system and, at times, direct their frustration at the arriving migrants.
Their views are rooted in a litany of reasons, from decades-long failed immigration reform and economic inequality to xenophobia and the disconnect amplified by the online misinformation. The nation has a long history of anti-immigrant sentiments, even among Latinos.
“These conversations on immigration are happening as California is more unequal than it’s ever been…but it’s easy to sort of pass the blame on to newcomers,” said G. Cristina
Mora, an associate professor of sociology at UC Berkeley. “This is not a new story. It’s always been there.”
For Nuñez , her frustration mainly stems from a belief that the system is hopelessly rigged. More than 25 years after arriving in the country, like many farmworkers, she has no legal status.
And instead of the home she longed for, Nuñez lives with her two youngest children in a mobile home park in Orosi, a small rural town 45 minutes from Fresno. Her oldest son recently joined the Army, a decision he made hoping to increase his mother’s chances of securing citizenship.
To her, the new arrivals are receiving benefits that she and other immigrants were never awarded. Those views, while conflated in both truth and misinformation, highlight growing tension caused by an immigration system pitting immigrant Latinos against each other.
“We are hardworking people and good people,” Nuñez said. “But the problem is that the government doesn’t see us.”
For years, California has been at the forefront in protecting people without legal status. Politicians passed laws to allow undocumented residents, like Nuñez, to apply for driver’s license, receive protection from immigration authorities and access healthcare.
Still, immigration experts expressed little surprise discussing recent California polling that shows Latino support for migrants seemingly eroding. Perhaps most notably, a January 2024 UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found that 63% of the state’s Latinos consider undocumented immigrants to be a major or minor “burden.”
“People are surprised that Latinos would take this stance, but there is a deep history,” said Mora, who is also the IGS co-director.
In 2003, following years of working two jobs, Nuñez achieved her dream of a home. But the triumph was short-lived. Less than four years later, in the midst of the U.S. financial crisis, Nuñez lost her job and eventually the home.
Without many options, Nuñez used her remaining money to buy a modest trailer home and moved to Orosi with her three children. She began working in the fields, where she has spent the last 16 years stuck living paycheck to paycheck. Earlier this year, Nuñez was hit with another blow.
Her longtime employer, Prima Wawona, one of the largest growers and packers of tree fruit in California, laid off her and thousands of workers off.
“The American Dream is dead,” Nuñez said.
These feelings of disillusionment among Latinos are common, particularly in California, according to Mora.
Latinos living in the state are overrepresented in low-income brackets, more likely to live in poverty and struggling to buy homes.
All together, the frustration can spill over, directed at people portrayed as worsening the problem.
Nearly 70% of California Latinos in a February 2024 PPIC poll said the situation at the border is a crisis or a very serious problem.
Those feelings extend across the nation as well, with nearly half of Hispanics stating their beliefin the debunked claimthat migrants seeking to enter the U.S. are leading to more crime, according to a February Pew Research report.
“You really see this happen during economic trends that are around increases in inequality and inflation,” Mora said.
In nearly every sense of the word, Nuñez is liberal. She routinely advocates for immigrant and farmworker rights.
Nearly two years ago, she walked roughly 350 miles from Delano to Sacramento in support of a farmworker unionization bill. After the march, she spent weeks alongside other farmworkers overseeing a vigil in front of the Capitol to persuade Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the legislation.
When the governor finally did sign in late September 2022, he handed a copy of the bill to a teary-eyed Nuñez. She called the interaction, and subsequent hug with Newsom, one of the best moments of her life.
The next year, Nuñez traveled to San Jose for another 40-mile march to demand congressional action on a pathway to permanent residency for millions stuck in legal limbo. Months later, she participated in another march in Colorado while braving the December cold.
But this same activism is partly why she now holds generally negative views of the migrants.
Through her work, she learned about the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 — the last comprehensive immigration reform — acted by the U.S. government. She learned about Congress’ continual failure to pass meaningful reform for her and the millions of other longtime undocumented residents stuck in limbo.
Nuñez struggles to come to terms with a system which can’t help undocumented residents like herself, who have paid taxes for years, yet provides shelter, debit cards and expedited work permits, to some recent arrivals.
“We have so many people with 30, 40 years living here,” Nuñez said. “People who are tired, old, sick and dead. Unfortunately they can’t have dignified retirement after all the years that they gave their youth, all their bodies, all their existence to get ahead.”
Immigration advocates acknowledge these feelings from undocumented residents are at an all-time high, and they say the frustration is misguided.
The government and politicians, who have neglected the immigrant community for years, are to blame, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Los Angeles-based organization Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights. Salas said the current dynamic results from pitting “immigrants against immigrants.”
“Our politicians are absolutely responsible for a lot of what’s happening ,” Salas said.
A flashpoint of Nuñez’s frustration began on social media, where her TikTok feed highlights the most negative stereotypes of migrants.
Among them are the videos of Leonel Moreno, who goes by the name of Leito Oficial. Moreno, a native of Venezuela, has generated interest and hatred among Latinos across the country. TikTok recently suspended Moreno’s account, though his Facebook and Instagram are still active.
In videos with millions of views, he has boasted about begging from strangers on the streets, living off money distributed by the government and commented on how easy it is to steal from supermarkets. Most recently, Moreno went viral and was covered by Fox News and other American media for a video encouraging migrants to break into homes and gain possession due to squatting laws. The New York Post reported he was arrested Friday by ICE.
“That is not the kind of migrants we need in this country,” Nuñez said.