For years, conservatives have falsely claimed that social media platforms like Facebook are biased against them, continuing to attack the company even after it bent its rules to appease them. Media Matters and others have repeatedly debunked these claims, including by showing that Facebook incentivizes sensational political content in a way that effectively makes it a propaganda machine for the right. 

Media Matters has documented numerous instances in which right-leaning pages have dominated the conversation on Facebook amid prominent news cycles. In recent months, right-wing media and politicians have sought to make immigration a key issue in the 2024 election, relentlessly fearmongering about migrant crime as Trump leads the charge on demonizing migrants and smearing Democrats on the issue of immigration.

Facebook pages that regularly post about news and politics shared nearly 80,000 posts about immigration between January 1 and June 30, 2024, earning over 30 million total interactions. 

Related posts from right-leaning and ideologically nonaligned pages far outpaced those from left-leaning pages, with ideologically nonaligned pages accounting for 48% (or more than 38,100 posts), right-leaning pages accounting for 47% (or more than 37,300 posts), and left-leaning pages accounting for only 6% (or 4,400 posts).

Notably, right-leaning pages earned the most interactions on immigration-related posts, with nearly 19.5 million interactions, or 65%. Left-leaning pages earned over 5.8 million interactions (or 19%) and ideologically nonaligned pages earned over 4.7 million interactions (or 16%).

Five of the six Facebook pages that posted the most about immigration during the assessed time frame were right-leaning pages dedicated to right-wing media outlets, including The Daily Wire (more than 800 posts), Newsmax (roughly 760 posts), Just the News (nearly 650 posts), Washington Examiner (more than 640 posts), and Breitbart (nearly 580 posts). The only ideologically nonaligned or left-leaning page that rivaled the quantity of immigration-related posts from those right-wing outlets was CBS 4 News Rio Grande Valley (nearly 700 posts). 

Fox News, Newsmax, and Breitbart were also among the 5 pages that received the most engagement on posts about immigration. Posts from left-leaning accounts, including historian Heather Cox Richardson and Occupy Democrats, rounded out the top 5. 

Half of the 10 immigration-related posts that received the greatest number of interactions were from right-leaning pages, including Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Newsmax, former President Donald Trump, and Franklin Graham. Most of these posts attacked Biden and fearmongered over his immigration policies, with Trump accusing Biden of “aiding and abetting a massive Invasion of millions of Illegal Migrants” and calling immigrants “Crooked Joe Biden's Illegal Immigrant Criminals.” These posts include:

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s video showing “Texas border wall construction is ongoing in Maverick County,” which earned nearly 174,000 interactions.
• Newsmax’s post about the Border Patrol union saying they never endorsed Biden after he said they did at the debate, which earned more than 117,000 interactions.
• Trump’s post claiming, “When I was President, we had the most secure Border in History,” and that “Joe Biden has surrendered our Border, and is aiding and abetting a massive Invasion of millions of Illegal Migrants,” which earned nearly 102,000 interactions.
• Franklin Graham’s post saying, “I hope President Biden’s trip to the border is going to make a difference, but his policies have caused this crisis,” which earned nearly 88,000 interactions.
• Trump’s post about the death of Rachel Morin claimed that “one of Crooked Joe Biden's Illegal Immigrant Criminals was just charged,” earning over 84,000 interactions.

Facebook has a history of allowing networks of right-wing pages to exploit its platform and amplify pro-Trump and other right-wing narratives. 

Networks of Facebook pages affiliated with right-wing media outlets amplified their immigration-related content across the platform, including The Daily Wire, the Western Journal, Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty, Fox News, and The Blaze. These networks accounted for nearly 34% of immigration-related posts from right-leaning pages and nearly 16% of related posts from all news and politics pages. Interactions earned on the immigration-related posts from these networks accounted for 28% of all interactions earned by right-leaning pages and 18% of all interactions earned by all news and politics pages.

The Daily Wire’s network of 10 Facebook pages shared over 3,500 posts about immigration during the studied time period, earning over 1.7 million total interactions. One of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions came from Ben Shapiro and claimed that “the left clearly wants illegal immigrants in the United States.” Pages in The Daily Wire’s network repeatedly shared the outlet’s articles.

The Western Journal’s network of 22 pages shared over 4,000 posts, earning over 320,000 interactions. Pages in the network repeatedly amplified articles from the Western Journal, including an article about border patrol allegedly killing someone near the border. The pages amplified the article, writing, “A single click in the distance sealed his fate,” and, “This fatal surprise caught him totally off-guard.”

The Western Journal’s network also amplified an article pushing the false narrative that Vice President Kamala Harris was the “border czar.” The outlet’s network of pages posted the article on Facebook at least 19 times, with right-wing outlet the Independent Journal Review also republishing the article and amplifying it from its own Facebook pages.

The Epoch Times/NTD network includes 6 pages, which shared over 1,100 posts and earned over 62,000 interactions. One of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions pushed a false claim about noncitizens voting in Pennsylvania.

Eight Facebook pages run by Fox News shared over 1,200 posts, earning over 2.8 million interactions on right-wing posts about immigration. Some of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions amplified criticism of Biden’s immigration policies.

The Blaze’s network of 9 pages shared more than 2,600 posts, earning over 480,000 interactions. Some of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions promoted Texas’ actions at the border.

These networks of pages also promoted the false claim that noncitizens are voting en masse in elections.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,486 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2022. For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. 

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts about immigration from the pages on this list that were posted between January 1, 2024, at 12 a.m. ET and June 30, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET. We reviewed data for these posts, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares).

We defined posts as being about immigration if they had any of the following terms in the message or in the included link, article headline, or article description: “asylum,” “Biden’s border,” “Biden border,” “border crisis,” “border crossing,” “border crossings,” “border patrol,” “border wall,” “cartel,” “cartels,” “CBP,” “children in cages,” “kids in cages,” “crisis at the border,” “family seperation,” “family separation,” “grant citizenship,” “granting citizenship,” “ICE Agent,” “ICE Agents,” “ICE leadership,” “ICE raid,” “ICE raids,” “illegal alien,” “illegal aliens,” “illegals,” “immigrant,” “immigrants,” “immigration,” “kids in cages,” “migrant,” “migrants,” “migration,” “MS-13,” “Rio Grande,” “sanctuary cities,” “sanctuary city,” “sanctuary jurisdiction,” “smuggle,” “smuggler,” “smugglers,” “smuggles,” “smuggling,” “southern border,” “terrorism watch list,” “Trump border,” “Trump’s border,” “Trump’s wall,” “US asylum,” “visa,” “visas,” “war on drugs,” “crossing the border,” “coming across the border,” “across the border,” “border official,” “border officials,” “Operation Blue Lotus,” “Mayorkas,” “build a wall,” “build the wall,” “built the wall,” “built a wall,” “trafficking,” “trafficked,” “border protection,” “title 42,” “unauthorized alien,” “unauthorized aliens,” “Harris border,” “Harris’s border,” “Kamala’s border,” “Kamala border,” or “noncitizens.”