Op-ed by Isabel Seo 

Migrant narratives are not migrant narratives until they are driven by migrants themselves.

If asylum seekers found themselves seated at the dinner table with politically powerful governing officials, would they be taken seriously? Could these leaders understand the migrant paradox that is experiencing violence to flee violence, to exchange old aches of hunger for new ones? When these officials do not know what it means to be whittled down to terms of human capital, often treated like human collateral, would these politicians put nationalistic narratives of migrants aside and believe the lived experiences shared by migrants themselves?

Migrant narratives are narratives perpetuated about immigrants, rather than the authentic lived experiences immigrants would share themselves. 

This situation was hypothetical; the realities migrants are living are not. They are real, they matter, and they must be shared authentically by migrants without political disruption. Politicized narratives have long forged odious stereotypes of migrants, marring the truth and criminalizing migrants. For example, although native-born individuals are more likely to commit serious crimes than immigrants, and higher rates of immigration are actually associated with decreased rates in violent and property crime, immigrants remain disproportionately criminalized by mainstream narratives. These narratives generate politically constructed moral panics of immigrant criminality based on regularity and criminal record, allowing the U.S. government to prey on popular fear and enact operations of mass deportation. However, rather than fostering national security, mass deportation and detainment conveniently line corporate pockets, using the prison industrial complex to funnel money into right-wing Political Action Committees. When governing institutions possess such political and financial stakes in the societal perception of migrants, it becomes overwhelmingly apparent that migrant narratives are narratives perpetuated about immigrants, rather than the authentic lived experiences immigrants would share themselves. 

This idea rattled me when I attended a side event at the 2026 International Migration Review Forum. As a student of criminal justice in the United States, my knowledge on international migration was lacking and constructed piecemeal from what I learned under the tutelage of my professors and the migration journeys of my mother and paternal family. I felt woefully unprepared to engage in elevated discourse with experts, wealthy enough in their knowledge to dress up their interventions in technical vocabulary, and figured it best to be a quiet observer. 

However, when one of the speakers proudly gestured to a wall decorated with posters representative of this event, my eyes landed on words excerpted from Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt’s speech in 2007. I read the poster once, then twice, and by the third time, I found myself less nervous, and more incredulous. In Spanish, the poster read: “Today, Europe and the United States spend more money on the control of migration than on the development of the countries of origin. But let us be honest, this strategy just isn’t working. Worse still, it’s selfish and even inhumane.” If we were to assume Verhofstadt’s intent was to comment on the inefficacy of hostile migration control in place of policy that facilitates safe migration, does that justify grossly infantilizing countries with high rates of emigration? To suggest such nations require development from the very countries culpable for destabilizing their economies in the pursuit of colonial or imperial interests? Furthermore, it’s quite convenient how Global North nations implicit in the cultural and fiscal disruption of other countries spin these narratives of underdeveloped “countries of origin” without naming their own role in such nations’ destabilization.

After researching the full speech from which the poster was excerpted, the Belgian Prime Minister had no issue wielding pejorative terms like “Third World” to describe nations in need of “development.” However, does this mean “underdeveloped” nations are “Third World”? Don’t nations like the U.S. require further development when riddled with homelessness, food scarcity, and inaccessible healthcare? Born from the Cold War climate to refer to countries unaligned with  the “First World” (U.S.-led capitalist bloc) and the “Second World” (Soviet-led communist bloc), “Third World” countries came to signify newly independent, impoverished, or former colony nations. Essentially, the Majority World, possessing 84% of the world’s population, was diminished to terms like “Third World,” and continues to carry this fabricated narrative of inferiority for not originally aligning with a conflict led by a minority of the globe. 

Such terms may seem innocuous, especially when used to advocate for less hostile migration control; nevertheless, their inclusion within migrant advocacy is a product of internalized Global North narratives that cement the erasure of accountability and reward Europe and the U.S. as gracious powers investing in countries perceived as underdeveloped for global stability. This reversal of roles neglects the history of colonialism and the truth that these countries are not underdeveloped but overexploited and lacerated in every aspect of economy and culture. For instance, while it is known that Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, Global North narratives often neglect to acknowledge that in 1825, French warships threatened the budding nation of formerly enslaved Haitian revolutionaries with the inability to participate in the global economy and gain international recognition if they did not pay 150 million gold francs ($560 million today). This impossible sum plunged Haiti into crippling debt as supposed compensation for the French plantation owners’ loss in “property.” Despite never issuing an apology or financial reparations, France goes unpunished by mainstream narratives and retains its romantic reputation as a global hub for artistry and fashion. 

Evidently, these hateful narratives are not naturally occurring—they are taught, learned, and internalized, polluting mainstream perceptions of migrants from the Global South. 

Comparably, narratives have long been used as a tool for governments to inform society on what is acceptable treatment of migrants. In 2018, President Trump deemed El Salvador and Haiti “shithole countries,” and suggested the U.S. accept more migrants from “places like Norway.” When a governing leader of an influential nation like the U.S. espouses such scornful rhetoric for Latine, Caribbean, and Black migrants while embracing White or European migrants, the leader normalizes such beliefs, potentially emboldening others to express hate and violence against individuals perceived as the “undesirable” migrants. After Trump’s hate speech went unpunished, it didn’t surprise me when a classmate told me and my friend that our family’s countries, El Salvador and Haiti, were “dirty” and that Haitian Creole was “messy French.” Evidently, these hateful narratives are not naturally occurring—they are taught, learned, and internalized, polluting mainstream perceptions of migrants from the Global South. 

Moreover, what is excluded from general public knowledge plays an imperative role in what becomes internalized within manufactured narratives. The following is an excellent contemporary example: As the Trump Administration continues its campaign of mass deportation, the Department of Justice spares no opportunity to arrest allegedly dangerous MS-13 affiliated Salvadorans, formally declaring MS-13 a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO) in 2025. However, this designation is utterly erroneous. After Congress banned foreign assistance to governments violating human rights, the Reagan administration labeled Salvadoran asylum seekers as “economic migrants” to conceal U.S. complicity in the funding and training of right-wing Salvadoran government and military forces massacring villages and lining streets with bloody corpses. Maintaining this false narrative that Salvadorans were not fleeing political violence, the U.S. denied an overwhelming majority of asylum seekers (only 2-3% were accepted); many of those that managed to enter were undocumented, without access to the socioeconomic support that accompanies formal refugee status. Facing severe isolation in their communities and from the U.S. government, young Salvadoran boys in Los Angeles formed the notorious MS-13 to fend against pre-existing street gangs. MS-13 was never a FTO, but born domestically as a product of political instability, U.S. complicity, and the isolation and deprivation of migrant communities. 

This contorted portrayal of history driven by Western cherry-picking bleeds into the lived realities of migrants, resulting in differential social reception: the English Pilgrims who fled religious persecution and the refugees who escaped Nazi Germany are taught to be migrants deserving of sympathy, but Global South members escaping equally unsurvivable circumstances are treated as gang-affiliated, social-welfare vampires smuggling narcotics and “rightfully” thrown into immigrant detention and deported to random third-party countries.

With the collective volume of voices, the political leaders at the dinner table could not outsize that of the entire house.

For this reason, migrant narratives are not migrant narratives until they are driven by migrants themselves. In order to change the dominating nationalistic perceptions of immigrants, society must deconstruct and decolonize every facet of migration. Migrants and grassroots organizations must be able to effectively advocate for themselves, so that the lived experiences of migrants inform the greater public, rather than political propaganda. Furthermore, popular education movements matter: informing migrants of their rights and how to use their voices to advocate for themselves remains quintessential in the fight to reclaim the mainstream regard of migrants. Programs such as WIMN’s Leadership in Global Advocacy (LIGA) prioritizes bolstering grassroots voices within migrant rights advocacy spaces to foster effective leadership coalition building skills. These invaluable programs teach migrants and grassroots organizations to platform themselves and project their voices beyond the reach of the dinner table. With the collective volume of voices, the political leaders at the dinner table could not outsize that of the entire house.

Isabel Seo is a passionate student at Rutgers University-Newark pursuing a BS/MA in criminal justice with a specialization in data and statistics. Excited to dive into the work of human rights advocacy and enforcement upon graduation, Isabel currently serves their community as a Monarch Ambassador for Rutgers-Newark’s Undocumented Student Services, a Peer Advisor for the Office of Academic Services, as well as a 2026 Research and Advocacy Intern for Women in Migration Network.

This article is part of a series developed through the collaboration between the Women in Migration Network (WIMN) and Efecto Colibrí.