When Migrants Become Political Pawns: Decoding the American Migrant Busing Crisis

“Sumana Chattopadhyay provides a thoughtful and passionate perspective on the busing phenomenon which treated migrants as political pawns in the highly charged debates about US immigration policy.In doing so, she creates compelling evidence about the prominence of nativism narratives in the media coverage of immigration.I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding how the media impacts how the audience thinks about specific conflicting issues.” - Olatunji Ogunyemi, Professor of Journalism, University of Lincoln, UKIn this book, Sumana Chattopadhyay analyzes the US migrant busing crisis of 2022 as a case study to examine ideas of nativism, identity politics, divisive rhetorics, and the red-blue-purple political divide in the context of how these divides are reflected in the media coverage of immigration issues. Under the US migrant busing phenomenon, migrants, long weaponized as pawns in political debate and policy, were now physically moved like chess pieces to st