The Specter of Racism in the 2005–6 Immigration Debate: Preserving Racial Group Position

In the heated debate regarding ‘illegal immigration’ in the US, arguments and accusations have abounded regarding economics, citizenship, criminality, and culture, but race has remained conspicuously sidelined in public discussion. I argue that race is in fact central to the debate on immigration, both by those opposed to any legalization of undocumented workers in the US and those who favor a temporary worker (‘work visa’) program. In this article, I examine how both anti-immigration and pro-work-visa groups framed the immigration debate as reported in newspaper articles in the particularly contentious period from December 2005 to November 2006. I performed a content analysis of three newspapers representing three different regions and three differing histories of immigration: the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, and the Raleigh News & Observer. Using Blumer’s group position theory, I examine the patterns within the discussion for evidence of preservation of racial group position on the part of both anti-immigration and pro-work visa advocates.