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.
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