Media Engagement and Avoidance: How Undocumented College Students Exert Agency

Research has established that the media plays a significant role in nonimmigrant viewers’ perceptions and attitudes toward undocumented immigrants. However, limited scholarship has examined how 1.5-generation immigrant viewers may engage with media in an increasingly hostile immigration policy context. Drawing on 31 interviews with undocumented college students, the author examines how they engage with media and their feelings toward coverage on deportability, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and policy implementation. The findings reveal that undocumented college students are pushed to consider their potential deportability when they encounter media outlets mentioning detention centers, migration deaths, and other immigration enforcement tactics. Yet they can simultaneously benefit from engaging with media to inform themselves about policy developments, attitudes toward immigrant rights, and avoiding high-risk situations by understanding what immigration policies could do to them. Undocumented college students practice agency by either engaging with, curating usage, or avoiding certain traditional and social media platforms to avoid triggering thoughts about deportability. This research fills a crucial gap in media and deportability literature by revealing the differential ways in which undocumented college students’ legal status influences their agentic decision-making regarding traditional and social media.