Surpassing the Wall of Nebraska Nice: Analysis of Immigration Rhetoric in Nebraska Journalism

This article analyzes how immigration politics and immigrants are discussed and represented in news coverage in Nebraska. We propose that national rhetoric about immigrants and immigration policy does not fully capture the shape of conversations and public opinion in Nebraska. This research analyzes news articles covering immigration politics in Nebraska from the 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump to 2019, and finds that economics drive conversations about immigration in Nebraska. While most literature focuses on rhetorical moves that criminalize and dehumanize immigrants, this snapshot reveals that economic conversations are a heuristic through which Nebraskans justify and rationalize their way through contradictory political opinions that both support and reject how immigrants and immigration policy change local Nebraska communities. Economic justifications allow communities to acknowledge the significance of the demographic change, while stalling conversations of inclusion and equity and masking exclusionary opinions that preserve existing privilege and power dynamics within the community. These economic arguments are one way in which local communities have complicated conversations about immigration and immigration policies, distanced from national rhetoric.