The Discourse of the Illegal Immigration Debate: A Case Study in the Politics of Representation

Abstract

It is the proposition of this paper that our search for enemies is turning inward now that the Cold War is over. The State, in alliance with business and other elite interests, is encouraging citizens to treat the immigrant, the poor, the unfortunate as the enemy. The discourse strategies that fabricated the immigrant as the enemy are analyzed in the debate over California's Proposition 187, which would exclude undocumented immigrant children from public schools and health care facilities. In the unsettling climate of California's economic uncertainty and perceived loss, powerful voices, including the State, successfully blamed the crisis on undocumented immigrants. By framing the debate in us v. them terms, presenting compelling anecdotes of illegal aliens taking jobs and abusing social services and appealing to the self-interest of disaffected citizens, proponents of Proposition 187 successfully countered universalistic appeals to the general good, a higher morality and universal human rights. In short, human rights lost in this election to self interest.