Social media is revolutionizing migration into the US — and spreading dangerous misinformation
A flood of online misinformation is generating sudden and unprecedented shifts in migration patterns.
In 1848, an Irish immigrant in Fort Smith, Ark., wrote a letter home extolling conditions in his newfound country. “Everything I need to live on is so cheap that it costs but very little to support a man and his family here,” he stated. “I address myself to my friends. I would say to them come here one and all and don’t hesitate one moment.”
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, as successive waves of immigrants arrived in the United States from Europe and other parts of the world, their letters to friends and families at home frequently contained glowing reports of the better opportunities and higher wages to be found in America. Often, they included detailed instructions, money and even boat tickets for the next wave of would-be immigrants waiting at home; when a Swedish immigrant named Carl sent his sister a letter in 1889, for instance, he included a ticket to America and travel tips.
Historians who study these “America letters” between immigrants and their social networks at home argue that the letters were a vital driver of immigration to the United States. And while some scholars have pointed out that these letters occasionally tended to gloss over the inevitable hardships, difficult living conditions and insecurity that could also define the immigrant experience, the letters also served as a conduit for crucial information that could help migrants make informed decisions about where to go and how to get there.
These days, communication plays a very similar role in motivating today’s migrants to make the journey. But social media is revolutionizing migrant communication — and migration itself.
Today, would-be immigrants, the vast majority of whom are in the Global South, are motivated to make the journey not only by direct contact with family and friends, but also by a flood of unsolicited and often idealized messages, images and videos on social media — especially TikTok and Meta-owned WhatsApp.
Unlike the old letters, which took days or weeks to arrive, social media messaging is virtually instantaneous. Social media posts reach a much broader audience as well, thanks to the algorithms that match users to their interests. Most importantly, however, migrant social media messaging is riddled with disinformation and rumors that are causing new and unprecedented challenges at the border and beyond. As any search of Facebook, Instagram or TikTok will reveal, a majority of the content aimed at migrants portrays only the bright side of the American Dream: images of the American flag and skyscrapers, and promises of steady employment, as well as false assurances of a deceptively easy passage through perilous migrant routes like the Darién Gap.
Furthermore, these WhatsApp chats, Facebook groups and viral TikToks make the process of legal immigration seem much simpler and easier than it actually is. Immigrants today face a far more difficult and complex path to legal migration than those in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As a result, many are choosing the one legal path available to them: asking for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In recent years, as thousands of migrants in northern Mexico navigate the complex process to get appointments with CBP ONE (the USCIS application migrants use to schedule appointments at the border to formally request asylum), their social media feeds have been flooded with videos of migrants getting the coveted appointments and crossing successfully.
Plenty of information is generated by migrants themselves, just as the old immigrant letters were. Yet there’s also a nefarious new source of this viral content: according to a 2022 Tech Transparency Project investigation, many of these messages are actually created by coyotes, cartel-linked traffickers who transport migrants throughout the Americas and are advertising widely on social media.
Taken together, this flood of online misinformation is generating sudden and unprecedented shifts in migration patterns. On March 12, 2023, migrants rushed the U.S. border at the Paso Del Norte International Bridge in El Paso, Texas, after a rumor spread on social media that migrants would be allowed to enter. In the final months of 2023, migrants on Facebook and WhatsApp saw rumors — supposedly started by migrant traffickers in order to generate business — that CBP ONE was going to shut down in December. These rumors may have been a key factor behind the highest number ever of migrant encounters on the border that same month.
Migration misinformation is so pervasive across global social media networks that it is even spurring spontaneous migrations from completely new places. The summer of 2023 saw a rapid increase in the number of migrants arriving from Mauritania · from almost none in previous years to over 8,000 in the span of just over a year — after word spread on TikTok and other forms of social media advertising a new route through Nicaragua and promising that “the American Dream is still available.” What the videos didn’t show, however, were the dangers awaiting migrants upon crossing through the rest of Central America and Mexico, as well as the unpleasant possibilities of being detained, deported or stuck in a shelter in the United States — all of which would become realities for Mauritanian migrants who made the journey.
One of the reasons migrants have come to rely on social media for information is because trustworthy information through reliable sources can be hard to come by. Major U.S. migration policy is often negotiated behind closed doors through bilateral agreements with countries throughout Latin America, most notably Mexico. And governments have been slow or unable to provide accurate and updated information to migrants via the social media channels they use most.
“When CBP ONE was updated post-Title 42, we were told by US Customs and Border Patrol that the registration numbers for migrants were assigned randomly when making an account, and did not indicate the sequence of when they were made,” said Father Brian Strassburger, SJ, director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries in the Rio Grande Valley. “But eventually, it became painfully obvious that the first digits of the registration numbers clearly followed a sequence that assigned a percentage of the appointments. When things like this happen, we begin to lose our credibility with the migrant community, and our ability to combat misinformation is diminished.”
Indeed, the challenges faced by migrant communication in the social media age mean that immigrant advocates on the border and in Latin America must work constantly to dispel rumors started by traffickers, respond to sudden social media-fueled migrations, and educate migrants away from the basic misunderstandings about immigration policy that spread online.
“The principal enemy we have is disinformation,” says Karen Perez, director of Jesuit Refugee Services Mexico. “Five years ago, it wasn’t like that.”
As with the “America letters” of the past, migrants rely on communication with each other; it can be a lifeline as they plan their journeys. Yet the migrant advocates of today face an enormous task in trying to tackle the instantaneously proliferating sources of misinformation and migration rumors on social media. They would do well to dedicate personnel and time to closely monitor social media networks and to try to proactively produce content that is reliable and trustworthy, such as Al Otro Lado, an organization that regularly produces videos explaining U.S. immigration processes and dispelling incorrect information in a variety of languages.
Social media companies can help as well, by doing a better job at quickly taking down content that migrants, government agencies and advocacy organizations flag as disinformation. In that sense, the new communications technologies of today — in contrast to the “America letters” of the past — present both greater problems for migrants and those who respond to migration, as well as greater possibilities for intervention and improvement.
Harrison Hanvey is manager of outreach and partnerships at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the U.S.
Julia G. Young is an associate professor of History at The Catholic University of America.