Implications of Rhetoric: A Newspaper Analysis of Immigration Policy
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Davis, Cassie. “Implications of Rhetoric: A Newspaper Analysis of Immigration Policy.” UMBC Review: Journal of Undergraduate Research 22 (2021): 99–116. https://ur.umbc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/354/2021/04/URCAD-web-book.pdf#page=99
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Abstract
This project examines nativism and racialized rhetoric surrounding Executive Order 13780 (Muslim ban) to identify parallels with immigration rhetoric and legislation in the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and Operation Wetback (1954). This study is limited to 60 New York Times pieces – articles, editorials, and opinion pieces – and official legislative policies to identify incautious, racialized, and pejorative language. This study also examines scholarship on American nativism to provide a conceptual framework for how rhetoric categorizing migrants as criminal, amoral, or less-than-human serves to justify biased and inhumane treatment of these potential refugees and to encourage anti-immigrant sentiment among Americans.