中期选举即将到来，你知道这意味着什么：根据唐纳德·特朗普政府和右翼媒体的说法，一群令人恐惧的移民正艰难地向边境进发，准备用他们外国的犯罪方式入侵这个国家。
It’s almost the midterm elections, and you know what that means: a caravan of scary migrants is trekking toward the border, prepared to invade the nation with their foreign criminal ways — according to Donald Trump‘s administration and right-wing media, anyway.
随着部分州即将开始提前投票，距离选举日也仅剩几周时间，共和党人正动用他们手中的一切手段，试图缓解选民对总统不受欢迎的前两年执政期产生的大规模选举反弹。这意味着散布关于来自南美和中美洲移民的恐惧。但人们很难不注意到，这些所谓的移民大篷车似乎总是在选举前夕突然出现，而在投票结束后又立即从右翼媒体的舆论周期中消失了。
With early voting set to begin in some states, and Election Day only a few weeks away, Republicans are using every tool in their arsenal to try to mitigate an electoral backlash to the president’s extremely unpopular first two years back in office. That means fear mongering about migration from South and Central America. But it’s hard not to notice that these supposed migrant caravans seem to only appear shortly before an election, and disappear from the right-wing media cycle immediately after votes are cast.
社交媒体上的右翼账号在周末开始发布未经证实的所谓移民大篷车的视频。特朗普政府迅速跟进，分享了一段费城老鹰队安全卫布莱恩·道金斯将球员扑倒在地的宣传视频，并配文“我们的时代已经到来”，以此回应关于移民大篷车的帖子。周一，国土安全部向福克斯新闻“证实”，“边境巡逻队正在积极追踪一支起源于洪都拉斯的移民大篷车，该车队目前正穿过墨西哥南部，希望抵达美墨边境。”
Right-wing accounts on social media began posting unverified videos of an alleged migrant caravan over the weekend. The Trump administration quickly jumped on the bandwagon, sharing a hype video of Philadelphia Eagles Safety Brian Dawkins tackling players to the ground with the caption “our time has come,” in response to a post about the caravan. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security “confirmed” to Fox News that “Border Patrol is actively tracking a migrant caravan that originated in Honduras and is now moving through southern Mexico with hopes of reaching the US/Mexico border.”
国土安全部在给福克斯的声明中特意强调，边境“已被彻底封锁。任何试图非法进入美国的人都将被逮捕、起诉并驱逐出境”。但请记住，共和党人以前也曾向选民展示过这类镜头，甚至连一些曾经参与制造移民恐惧和贩运车队歇斯底里的人也开始揭露其真面目。
DHS made sure to include in its statement to Fox that the border “has been SEALED SHUT. Anyone attempting to illegally enter the United States will be apprehended, prosecuted, and removed from the country.”But remember, Republicans have shown voters this kind of footage before, and even some of those who once participated in immigration fear mongering and caravan hysteria are calling it out for what it is.
“我们好几年没看到前往美国南部边境的移民队伍了，为什么现在又出现了？”前共和党众议员玛乔丽·泰勒·格林写道。“哦，对了，大选要来了，共和党需要吓唬你们去投票，因为其他招数都不管用了。”2018年，在特朗普第一任期内，面对一场最终导致共和党失去国会控制权的“蓝色浪潮”选举，共和党人将目光聚焦于媒体对一股历史性移民潮涌向边境的狂热报道。
“We have not seen a caravan headed to the U.S. southern border in several years, why now?” wrote former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Oh yeah, there is an election coming and the GOP needs to scare you into voting because nothing else is working.”In 2018, as Republicans under the first Trump administration stared down a blue wave election that would ultimately cost the GOP control of Congress, the party coalesced around feverish news coverage of a historic wave of migrants making their way towards the border.
就连主流媒体也蜂拥而上，《华盛顿邮报》和《纽约时报》发表了超过一百篇提及该移民队伍的文章。福克斯新闻在有线电视领域带头炒作，在当年10月30日至11月5日——选举季高峰期——期间，该词被提及了1202次。就在选举日过后不久，各大主流媒体的报道中几乎立刻消失了这支移民队伍的身影。但特朗普及其媒体盟友从中吸取了宝贵的一课：如果他们能在自己的基本盘内煽动起足够的恐慌情绪，全国媒体就不得不跟进报道。
Even the mainstream press glommed on, with The Washington Post and The New York Times running over a hundred stories mentioning the caravan. Fox News led the charge on cable, mentioning the word “caravan” 1,202 times between Oct. 30 to Nov. 5 of that year — peak election season. Virtually immediately after Election Day, the caravan practically vanished from news coverage by major outlets. But Trump and his media allies had learned a valuable lesson: if they could gin up enough hysteria about it among their own base, the national press would be forced to address it.
移民队伍的幽灵将成为选举季的候鸟，在夏末秋初时节抵达，待选票统计完毕后便随冬季离去。
The specter of migrant caravans would become the migratory bird of election season, arriving just as summer faded and departing for the winter once the ballots were counted.
2022年——又一个中期选举年——福克斯新闻警告称，史上最大规模的移民队伍正在南部边境集结。同年，进步派监督机构“媒体关注”（Media Matters）开展的一项研究发现，该网络对移民犯罪的报道在选举结束后大幅减少。2024年，各媒体报道了约2000名从中美洲前往美国的移民。在特朗普赢得白宫后，他们的下落如何？似乎没人关心去探究。
In 2022 — another midterm year — Fox News warned that the largest caravan in history was forming at the southern border. That same year, a study conducted by the progressive watchdog Media Matters found that the network’s coverage of migrant crime dropped significantly after the elections. In 2024, networks reported on a group of roughly 2,000 migrants traveling from central America to the United States. What became of them after Trump won the White House? No one seemed to care to find out.
今年，在移民与海关执法局（ICE）和边境巡逻队残暴与过度执法的领导下，特朗普政府的移民执法已成为套在共和党人脖子上挥之不去的累赘。既然特朗普据称已经关闭了边境、驱逐了罪犯并恢复了移民系统的正常秩序，该党正艰难地思考如何让其基本盘继续对移民威胁感到恐惧。他们曾试图煽动人们对伊斯兰势力和沙里亚法渗透美国城市的恐慌，攻击南亚学生在橄榄球比赛中表现得过于具有异国情调，而现在，他们又重新搬出了那个曾经半灵验的老把戏——大篷车移民。
This year, the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement — led by the cruelty and excesses of ICE and Border Patrol — have become an anvil around the neck of Republicans. The party is struggling with how to keep their base afraid of the migrant threat now that Trump has supposedly closed the border, deported the criminals, and restored sanity to the immigration system. They’ve tried fomenting a panic about Islamic influence and Sharia Law infiltrating American cities, attacked South Asian students for having too much foreign looking fun at football games, and now are reviving an old semi-reliable in the caravan.
不出所料，特朗普的支持者们鹦鹉学舌般地传播着这些信息。“这个移民大篷车对民主党来说不是好消息，”福克斯新闻主持人劳拉·英格拉姆在社交媒体上写道。“这让选民想起了拜登和民主党最糟糕的一面。”阴谋论者杰克·波索比奇分享了一则新闻标题，声称“大批移民大篷车正涌向美国边境，以期迎合民主党的开放边境政策”。
Dutifully, Trump’s boosters parroted it out the messaging. “This migrant caravan is not good news for Dems,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham wrote on social media. “Reminds voters about the worst of Biden and Dems.”Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec shared a headline claiming that a “mass caravan of migrants heads to the US border in anticipation of Democrats’ open border policies.”
从演员转型为右翼垃圾内容发布者的詹姆斯·伍兹分享了一段2023年的视频，并配文：“今年11月投票前三思。”当这种套路如此显而易见时，很难让人认真对待其中任何内容，就连这个国家里最狂热的排外情绪兜售者对此似乎也显得有些心不在焉。
Actor turned right wing slop poster James Woods shared a video from 2023 with the caption: “Think before you vote this November.”It’s hard to take any of it seriously when the pattern is so obvious, and even the most rabid peddlers of xenophobia in this country seem only half hearted about it.