Happy Wednesday, Show Mo Facts supporters! In today’s blog post, we’ll evaluate and fact-check an advertisement posted on Youtube by Eric Burlison. Burlison is currently a Missouri State Senator representing the 20th Senatorial District in Springfield, MO. Burlison is the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 7th Congressional District.
In this advertisement, featuring Texas Senator Ted Cruz, we see an outstanding amount of support for Burlison from Cruz. Cruz makes many statements endorsing Burlison due to his work towards fighting illegal immigrants in Missouri. Cruz says, “There’s one candidate for Congress I trust to keep Missourians safe from illegal immigration”
Claim: “Burlison will fight the invasion of illegals brought by Biden”
Fact: Missouri has one of the lowest percentages of undocumented immigrants, only 1% of Missouri’s population is made up of unauthorized immigrants. Additionally, the advertisement makes it clear that they are alluding to illegal immigration from primarily Latin American countries, as the visuals used (at 16 seconds) are of the border wall in our southern states. In Missouri, only 45%, of that 1% of unauthorized immigrants, are from Mexico. (Information provided by Pew Research Center, 2016, linked above).
With this information, we question how the claim in the advertisement is relevant to the daily life of the average Missourian.
We’d also like to look at the use of language in this claim, the word “invasion” is a compelling word choice and has only been seen in politics recently. A majority of the times invasion has been said, was by President Donald Trump. An analysis by The New York Times in 2019 found that 2,000 political ads that Trump bought on Facebook included the word invasion.
In eight months, Trump said the word invasion over 21 times during public speeches, remarks, and campaign rallies, even mentioning invasion over seven times at one rally. (Information from Vox, 2019, linked here)
The word invasion creates a violent reaction, making people believe America is at war and needs protection. When in reality, there is no invasion, but rather, a humanitarian crisis.
Another time we’ve seen the word invasion used was after the 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas at Walmart. The shooter had a manifesto where he claimed a “Hispanic Invasion” was happening, and he had to take action.
Invasion being used in this advertisement is trying to invoke fear in Missourians, a fear that doesn’t necessarily affect Missouri. As we’ve seen in the past, the use of this language can lead to tragedy, and while the word invasion isn’t inherently bad, the advertisement framing it as if we [America] are at war, is.
Due to the false claims in the advertisement about Missouri being taken over by undocumented immigrants, we rate this advertisement EXTREME on our Pants on Fire O-Meter. Not only is this claim untrue, but there is also extremely misleading language and an unnecessary call to action.
Thank you for reading Show Mo Facts! Be sure to follow us on Twitter as well as like and comment on this post. Also, send us any ads that you see and would like us to cover through our Contact page. If you’d like to check out another blog from our class, we recommend Gateway To Facts. They are fact-checking the MO DNC. Find them here!
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