A recent trend in the US and abroad has seen a surge in rhetoric blaming migrants for crime, often following a violent incident. This narrative has been observed in the UK and Ireland, where a single crime allegedly involving a migrant is quickly reframed into a broader indictment of migrants and minorities.

The ‘Dangerous Migrant’ Script

This script typically begins with a triggering event, such as a violent assault, which is then used to prime people for blaming a group of people. The incident is often recast as evidence of criminality among a larger category, such as illegal immigrants, and is frequently conveyed through disinformation and social media narratives that depict such people as a security threat.

In the US, this script has often played out through political rhetoric, legislative branding, and government enforcement. For example, the Laken Riley Act, signed into law in 2025, was promoted as a way to keep ‘dangerous criminal aliens’ off the streets.

This narrative process endures because it converts complex social stress into an intuitive moral drama, offering a quicker villain and a simpler solution to persistent social problems such as violent crime. The immigrant-threat frame has become a repeatable narrative that takes one perpetrator, assigns representative meaning to that person, and then directs fear toward a much larger population.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.