MYTHS THAT WHITE SUPREMACY BUILT

This chapter argues about numerous myths that outlined by most of white supremacist which
is based on what have been encountered by Latinos in their daily live. Some of the scholars
have their own opinion about what based the myth that white supremacist built. But, most of
these scholarship recognizes that it’s not enough to examine the problem with these myths. In
particular, these scholarship argues that race and citizenship are uniquely intertwined.
While there are scholars who have centered their discussion of immigration on race, much of
the scholarship on immigration focuses on how this issue is about several factors other than
racism. This section outlined how the myths should be interpreted with regard to racism and
white virtousness. I have organized these discourses into five myths addressing law,
criminality, economy, immigrant racial demographic, and immigrants social impacts on the
United States.

MYTH 1: VIOLATION OF EXISTING U.S. IMMIGRATION LAW

GUIDES EXCLUSION
FROM U.S. CITIZENSHIP
One myth is rooted in the premise that national and state-level immigration law is color-blind.
As race scholars have shown, color blindness is rarely the case in the U.S. legal system, people
of color are more often targets of police agencies and are more likely than whites to be
impacted by the legal system.
Broadly speaking, under constitutional law, race is not considered a factor for discrimination
unless one can prove intent to discriminate. This means that narratives regarding intent can be
shifted to reflect current racial hierarchies, structures, and attitudes; in the United States these
current realities are such that Latino immigrants are understood as the racial Other. Eduardo
Bonilla-Silva documents that this shifting of intent constitutes a “colorblind discursive move"
where in whites are able to practice racism without being overtly racist. Narrating these
practices as nonracist masks a white supremacist logic, eliding a racist practice by interpreting
such practice as non-overt, accidental, or unintentional and at worst as normative. Further,
decades of data show the realities of racial discrimination, both intentional and unintentional,
against immigrants and Americans of color and prove that little has changed despite claims of
racial progress in the United States.
Much of police work is based on intuition and largely relies on physical features, bodily
comportment, social context, and a "gut feeling" by the officer in a given situation While police
must, of course, find evidence to arrest, convict, or imprison, the “white thinking" undergirding
constitutional law comes into play. Belief in the virtuousness of white police officers and
predominantly white politicians and other government officials guides law based on white
supremacist U.S. legal structures that were historically constructed to maintain in-group or out-
group status. The law itself, despite its verbose and sometimes passionate or aggressive
claims,is not color-blind, but composed of the same racial hierarchies to which humans are
subject. Every day, enforcement of immigration law is meted out by police trained to protect
the interests of a white supremacist nation-state Therefore, Myth I should be understood is
racism that is deeply ingrained in the U.S. legal system, with a primary goal-the maintenance
of white supremacy and white virtuousness.

MYTH 2: MOST LATINO IMMIGRANTS ARE IN THE UNITED

STATES ILLEGALLY
Most Latino immigrants are in the United States illegally, is factually untrue: the vast majority
of immigrants, more than 3o million of 40 million total, are authorized to be in the United
States. However, statistical data rarely prevail over the ideology of white supremacy. This myth
draws on decades of discourse regarding the immigration of Latinos to the United States and
on discourse that focuses on whites' fear of and anxiety about an invasion by Latino people.
The reason is because white fears of invasion are largely a fear of loss of resources, power,
control, and dominance.

As the historical record plainly reveals one easy way to facilitate segregationist ideology and
practice is to maintain systems of racial and economic oppression. The binary discourse of
llegal or legal citizenship work to maintain polarity regarding immigration Illegality requires
a benchmark to be understood.

Therefore, one must understand that the language of illegal or legal regarding status is an
important aspect of this myth. This distinection immediately organizes Latino people such chat
they are presumed to be illegal until they prove otherwise. Proof of citizenship can be
determined only by police and the criminal justice system, which both historically and as
presently constructed maintain white supremacy. Rather than being a color-blind process,
citizenship and its benefits hinge on racial identity, and a fundamental aspect of belonging in
the United States is that one must be white. A person's status as legal is dependent on the
recognition of equality within the criminal justice system, illegality and legality can only be
understood in relation to each other.Under the white logics of legality, if person want to apply
for citizenship, it will be granted irrespective of race. In truth, not everyone can apply or be
granted citizenship because of the interconnectedness of citizenship and race.

This myth maintains binary interpretations of crime (illegality) and citizenship- that is either
one is criminal and illegal or one is law-abiding and a citizen. Conceptualizing immigrants in
this manner leads to understanding all Latino immigrants an paperless as criminal, thus spiking
reports of immigrants as contributing to crime this logic directs attention away from the
problems with the U.S. criminal justice system-a system that preys on poor whites, Latinos,
and blacks-and from how whites commit all types of crimes.

Immigrants commit a significant portion of crime in the United States; however, understanding
what constitutes crime with regard to immigration will help clarify why such claims are
inaccurate. Criminality for immigrants happens the moment their documents expire and, for
some, the moment they enter the country without the required documentation. The vast
majority of these immigrant offenders were convicted of unlawful entry, while the remaining
were sentenced for drug offenses, other immigration-related offenses, or miscellaneous crimes.
Where as the overwhelming factor in immigrant crimes, is a lack of access to residence and
citizenship. So the panic over immigrant crime stems not from an actual danger to the lives of
Amcrican people, but rather from a fear of Latino immigrant presence and equality,
underscored by racism and white supremacist ideology.

Using immigrant Latinos as the criminal foil props up white virtuousness and distracts from
the realities of white supremacy. (Donald Trump's racist comments during the 2016)