Introduction

The different definitions of immigration recognize it as a movement of people that has deep social, political, and emotional meaning. The differences between these definitions come from the order in which we understand immigration: first through the language we use, then through how we interpret that language, and finally through how our psychological responses shape the policies that follow.  Language frames immigration as the crossing of both physical and symbolic borders, where states impose alienating labels and individuals push back by reshaping their own narratives. Our interpretations of that language draw on psychology, ideas of threat, belonging, and identity, which influence how people internalize immigration and respond emotionally to it. These perceptions, in turn, inform policy, because governments constantly redefine who is included and who is excluded based on public attitudes shaped by these earlier layers.

Our definition of immigration for this project, based on these perspectives, is that immigration is a socially constructed and constantly shifting idea that functions both as a tool and a label. It moves through policy, narrative, and psychology to shape how societies understand identity, belonging, and difference. It is also a site of resistance as immigrants actively resist labels imposed on them. Rather than a static word, immigration is a living idea, and one that those in power have historically used to criminalize and categorize, but also transformed by those who experience it into a means of asserting identity, agency, and presence in the stories of moving. Beyond this, it gives us insights into the complex human experiences behind movement and change.

Building on our definition, the page first examines how language used around immigration constructs immigration as a problem of threat, legality, and belonging. It then moves to the psychological lens, analyzing how these linguistic frames shape perception through mechanisms such as fear, priming, and identity formation. Finally, it explores how these perceptions become institutionalized through policy, demonstrating how immigration law and enforcement practices reflect and reinforce earlier discursive and psychological processes.

Case Study: Language, Perception, and Policy in the Context of North African Migration to Europe

Migration from North Africa to Europe offers a particularly instructive empirical context for examining the relationship between language use, public perception, and policy formation, which is the thematic relationship that the essay addresses throughout. Across European media, political discourse, and digital platforms, African mobility has been repeatedly represented through crisis-oriented language. These representations actively construct negative connotations of immigrants, shape emotional responses, and render certain policy responses both necessary and legitimate. Examining this context illustrates how words operate as an initial structuring force that precedes and organizes public perception, which subsequently informs state action.

Across both mainstream and far-right discourse, the description of immigrants as a crisis dominates. Italian newspapers, for instance, framed arrivals as a “real risk of an invasion that would be impossible to control,” casting migration as a siege on national borders.1 The Ethical Journalism Network similarly notes that Italian headlines have described arrivals as “Immigration chaos. Invasion by land… an endless emergency,” demonstrating how metaphors of war and disaster were employed to describe African migrants reaching Europe’s southern edge.2 Such language produces migrants as overwhelming, unmanageable masses, and in doing so, sets the emotional foundation of fear of immigrants entering the border.

This framing is amplified by political actors who rely on heightened rhetoric to gain support. Far-right politicians in Italy have repeatedly warned of a “planned mass invasion” of migrants, positioning Italians as victims and the state as incapable of defending its borders.3 On social media, these narratives intensify. Posts analyzed in Exclusionary Narratives at Europe’s Southern Edge repeatedly describe Lampedusa as “invasa da immigrati infetti” (which means invaded by infected immigrants in English) and claim that new arrivals “producono criminalità e problemi” (which means they produce crime and problems in English), directly blaming African migrants for disease, criminality, and social collapse.4 Even misinformation, such as fabricated stories alleging migrants were eating local residents’ dogs, relies on dehumanizing tropes to depict African bodies as uncivilized or dangerous.5 These patterns demonstrate how language constructs migrants as pure threats to the nation and neglects all the possible economic and cultural benefits that immigrants could bring.

When these linguistic frames become normalized, they shape how European publics perceive African migrants. The Securitization of African Migrants analysis notes that African mobility is consistently portrayed as “an invasion, a crisis, or a national emergency,” language that “evoke[s] fear among the host communities” and fosters the perception that African migrants are inherently suspicious or dangerous.6 Public discourse around Lampedusa reinforces this pattern: co-occurrence analyses show that the most frequent words associated with migrants emphasize quantity (“più”) and threat (“invasione”),7 making the fear of immigrants become common sense. In psychological terms, this repetition functions as a form of cognitive priming, shaping how audiences automatically associate migration with danger and loss of control.

These narrative constructions, in turn, legitimate restrictive and securitized policy responses. Securitization theory argues that once migration is framed as an existential threat, “exceptional measures beyond standard political procedures” become easier to justify, which is evident in the expansion of European border enforcement regimes.8 Specifically, these narratives led to and legitimized measures such as port closures to NGO rescue ships and cooperation agreements with the Libyan coastguard, which are being justified in the media as necessary acts of protection in the face of an “invasion.”9 Social media narratives describing migrants as criminals or disease carriers further legitimize calls for stricter border control, detention, and the externalization of asylum processing to North African states.

The case of migration from North Africa to Europe illustrates a circular relationship between language, perception, and policy. Crisis metaphors and dehumanizing rhetoric produce fear, and fear solidifies the perception that migrants are dangerous, and that perception provides governments with the discursive tools needed to implement exclusionary policies. Just as the Johnson-Reed Act and the Muslim Ban relied on narratives of threat to justify discriminatory exclusion, contemporary European border regimes depend on linguistic constructions of African migrants as invaders to sustain practices that restrict and deter mobility.

The sections that follow extend this analysis beyond the North Africa case by examining comparable cases of immigration and crisis, in order to trace how language, psychological interpretation, and policy-making mutually reinforce one another within immigration governance.

Language Lens

The power of words in our everyday lives, law and policy, and popular culture can often be overlooked. The words we use to refer to communities carry stereotypes and subliminal ideas that end up shaping the identities and experiences of entire communities. The word immigration, or more specifically immigrant, often comes accompanied by other characteristic nouns that subtly draw the public to negative perceptions of the group, shaping popular and political attitudes towards immigrants’ presence and constant growth. Words such as alien, illegal, and undocumented are some of the ones that have been historically associated with immigrants, carrying and shaping perceptions and attitudes towards them. This section will analyze the origin of these words and how their usage creates the immigrant picture that we all envision.

Immigrant Alien

The word alien was first utilized to refer to immigrants in the Naturalization Act of 1790,10 but it wasn’t until the Alien Sedition Act in 1798 that the word began to gain more popularity in its direct association with immigrants.11 One general definition utilized in legal settings cited in the Immigration and Nationality Act and widely debated in legal literature defines an alien as any person who is not a U.S citizen or national.12 This is the usage of the word that informs much of U.S. immigration law and policy. In popular media, the word alien often recalls creatures from another planet who look, act, and speak differently, and are also portrayed as threatening. Geral Neuman informs that using the same term to describe immigrants helps construct them as outsiders and can create or reinforce sentiments of threat around immigrant communities.13

Illegal Immigrant

Calling a human being illegal directly strips away their dignity as it objectifies the body in an attempt to refer to someone’s existence as “forbidden” and “prohibited”. The term illegal to refer to immigrants was first used in a New York Times article in 1897 and later became more widespread following the Immigration Act of 1924.14 Using the term illegal to refer to and describe immigrants dehumanizes individuals by suggesting that their mere presence in a certain land makes them unlawful. Legal scholars emphasize that illegality is not a personal trait but a condition produced by laws. Mae Ngai suggests that law creates categories of “illegal aliens” as a state policy rather than any criminal acts performed by the individual.15 The usage of this word to refer to immigrants is proven to have negative effects on the perception of the community as a whole, as a study by Callister et al demonstrates that calling immigrants illegal rather than undocumented incentivizes people to vote towards stricter immigration laws.16

17

The above political cartoon compares the segregation laws imposed on African Americans in 1963 with restrictions placed on undocumented students in 2011. On the left, a young Black girl is directed toward a  “Colored” section, reflecting Jim Crow-era racial segregation in public schools. On the right, a Latino boy is pointed toward a section labeled “Illegals,” referring to policies that sought to restrict undocumented students from accessing public education. By placing these two images side by side, the cartoon illustrates how language evolves to maintain and create new systems of exclusion. This reinforces the sentiments of categorization among marginalized groups, which reproduces forms of racialized exclusion.

Undocumented Immigrant

Immigration is a movement shaped both by choice and necessity, where people leave their homeland in search of safety, stability, and belonging when their homeland can no longer sustain them. For immigrants who, for any reason, are unable to enter the country utilizing what, by law, is proper documentation, scholars and advocates recommend the term undocumented immigrant. This is because undocumented literally means “not supported by written proof,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary.18 This term, as a way to speak about immigrants, doesn’t categorize or criminalize immigrants in denigrative ways but instead refers to the fact of not having documentation of existence in the land, acknowledging individuals as people whose lack of documentation does not negate their humanity or belonging.

Psychological Lens

Immigration should not be studied only through economic or political lenses, but also through the lens of individual thought and behavior. Research has shown that personal characteristics, such as personality traits or perceptions of threat, affect both the decision to migrate and how people in receiving societies respond to immigrants.19 By distinguishing between types of perceived threats (realistic, social identity, or symbolic), it shows how emotions, biases, and individual perceptions shape broader social tensions around immigration. This focus on psychological processes highlights that immigration is not just a structural issue but also a deeply personal one, rooted in how individuals interpret change, difference, and belonging. Overall, we need to look at how we think about immigration by showing that it’s not just about policy or economics, but also about human perception, emotion, and identity.

While we talk about the psychological lens, this London School of Economics (LSE) article appropriately explains how the constant media focus on “illegal” immigrants shapes how Americans think about immigration through a psychological process known as priming.20 Even when news stories don’t explicitly portray immigrants as criminals or threats, the repeated use of the term “illegal” subtly directs attention toward lawbreaking, security, and control. Data from the 2019 ANES Pilot shows that Americans give “illegal” immigrants a rating of 43/100 compared to 72/100 for “legal” immigrants, in addition to the data from five major US newspapers where the terms “illegal” are mentioned far more often than the term “legal” when it comes to how immigrants and immigration are discussed. This emphasis influences what people consider important when forming opinions about immigration policy, often leading them to think in terms of enforcement rather than compassion, opportunity, or integration. Over time, these repeated cues shape public perceptions by activating certain mental associations that link immigration with illegitimacy or danger. This article highlights how language and framing in the media can guide thought processes in powerful but often unnoticed ways, showing that people’s attitudes toward immigration are deeply influenced by psychological responses to the words and images they encounter everyday.

A similar psychological pattern appears when looking at how visual media shapes public perception. Media Matters found that national TV news often uses the same B-roll footage of crowded border crossings or migrants in detention, even when the segment isn’t actually about the border.21 This kind of repetition works as a form of nonverbal priming, where audiences start to automatically associate immigration with crisis, disorder, or threat simply because these images become so familiar. Visuals also trigger faster and stronger emotional reactions than language. When people constantly see dramatic border scenes, it activates feelings of both realistic threat (fear of insecurity or competition) and symbolic threat (anxiety about cultural change). Even neutral reporting ends up being interpreted through a lens of danger or loss of control because the images do so much of the psychological work. Over time, this skews how the public understands immigration. The issue becomes reduced to what happens at the southern border, overshadowing stories about legal pathways, integration, or the actual reasons people migrate. Just as certain language shapes thought, repeated crisis-focused imagery quietly guides people toward enforcement-centered views and reinforces misconceptions about what immigration really looks like.

Even with constant exposure to chaotic border clips and fear-based political ads, public attitudes toward immigration remain more balanced than the media environment suggests. The ACLU’s polling shows that most Americans still believe immigration is good for the country and want solutions that both manage the border and provide a pathway to citizenship for longtime residents.22 This shows that while repeated crisis imagery can increase feelings of threat, it doesn’t erase people’s greater values around fairness, community, and opportunity. What it does do is shape which stories and solutions the public actually hears. When so much money is spent pushing fear, it drowns out narratives about immigrant workers, small business owners, and families who contribute to their communities. As a result, people are offered a narrow, crisis-only view of immigration, even though they are open to more humane and practical reforms. The ACLU notes that voters want leaders to focus on real solutions, like improving processing, reducing backlogs, and offering stability to Dreamers and other longtime residents, but fear-based messaging can discourage politicians from taking that approach.23

Taken together, these dynamics show that understanding immigration requires understanding the psychology behind how people perceive it, and how those perceptions are shaped long before policy debates even begin.

Policy Lens

The ways in which we perceive immigration through language and psychology influence the policies then enacted by governments to “legally” exclude certain populations and individuals. The reverse is also true— these policies influence the perception and language used to describe immigration. In this section, we will discuss one historical example of a restrictive immigration law and one contemporary example, comparing and contrasting the two.

Johnson-Reed Act (Immigration Act of 1924)

In March 1924, David Reed, a staunch Republican, and John Trevor, the leader of an anti-immigration organization, submitted a proposal to Congress composed of three components. The first of which established immigration quotas according to 2% of the non-US born population in the 1890 US census, heavily favoring Western Europeans.24 The second principle restricted immigration from residents of countries ineligible for US citizenship, including most of Asia, particularly Japan.25 The final provision required that no restrictions be placed on countries in the Western hemisphere, including the Americas, Canada, and Mexico.26 Congress accepted these principles and passed them into law in May 1924 as the Johnson-Reed Act, also known as the Immigration Act of 1924.27

Shortly before the implementation of the Act, Senator David Reed wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times with the goal of gaining widespread public support for anti-immigration sentiment. This map shows the few countries whose residents would be permitted to enter the United States. Reed argued that the immigration law landscape at the time allowed individuals with “contagious diseases and the insane and the notorious criminal” to enter, which is why he believed his proposal was necessary— to re-establish a more unified and safe nation.28 The title of the map in particular stands out: framing the end of the “melting pot” as necessary for national preservation mobilizes fear concerning the dilution of American identity and was likely strategically chosen to encourage public support for the act. Additionally, by presenting these restrictions in the form of a map, Reed’s argument is displayed as something factual and objective. Maps, especially in the 1900s, were often seen as authoritative tools for understanding the world, so this particular visual leads the reader to believe these hierarchies are in fact natural and necessary.

There are several implications of this legislation. First, it reinforced an existing pattern of codifying racial and nationality hierarchies into federal law.29 It strategically positioned Western countries at the top while simultaneously allowing for immigration from Mexico, which remained a crucial source of laborers. The government feared imposing strict regulations on immigration from the Americas would cause internal backlash and decrease support for the law.30 This goes to show that this act was not only shaped by widespread nativist sentiment but also by the economic interests deeply rooted in American capitalism that relied on immigrant labor. Second, the law established that Western Europeans were better positioned to assimilate to the United States than other groups, essentially indicating their superiority.31 This rhetoric likely helped increase the spread of xenophobic and exclusionary attitudes. Finally, this law solidified the US demographic composition for decades to come by limiting cultural and national diversity.32

Executive Order 13769: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States

On January 27, 2017, President Trump passed an executive order that contained two provisions: 1) restricted immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days and 2) did not allow individuals to enter the US as refugees for 120 days. While this order was originally contested by the lower courts, the Trump administration made slight revisions, and it was eventually approved for implementation by the Supreme Court.33

There are several aspects of this legislation that we can unpack. First, the US government framed this travel ban as an essential national security measure, building upon already-existing Islamophobic and racialized perceptions of Muslims. The Trump administration was able to capitalize on public fear following 9/11 that linked Muslims to terrorism, a fear that the Bush and Obama administration did nothing to quell.34 Second, this policy essentially codified religious discrimination into law. By targeting only Muslim-majority countries, the government reinforced negative attitudes towards Muslim identities. Further, it “othered” Muslims, giving legal legitimacy to Islamophobic narratives.35 Third, this ban resulted in deep psychological and health consequences for Muslim immigrant communities. One study found that patients from Muslim-majority countries were missing their primary care appointments more often and that there were an additional 232 emergency department visits by patients from the banned countries for stress-related anxiety and self-harm attempts.36 These results show the measurable harm the ban caused for Muslim communities, just because of their identity.

However, these legal and social consequences did not go unchallenged. Across the nation, institutions and individuals joined together to resist the ban—one such example is New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA).37 

Shortly after January 2017, the MoMA took down seven pieces from Western artists, including Picasso and Matisse, replacing them with works from artists of the countries banned from entering the US. The piece featured above is titled “The Prophet” by Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli and displays an individual reading the Quran.38 By choosing to place this religious sculpture in the center of the gallery, the MoMA is taking a stand against this discriminatory legislation, highlighting how cultural and artistic spaces can resist exclusionary narratives.  

The Johnson-Reed Act and Muslim Travel Ban both rely on exclusionary and racialized narratives that frame immigrants as threats to national safety. While the Johnson-Reed Act constructed a hierarchy of nationalities that favored Western Europeans and Trump’s executive order targeted a specific religious group, both examples illustrate that discriminatory attitudes persist throughout our history, ever evolving but never disappearing. These policies show just how powerful fear-based rhetoric can be in legitimizing legal exclusion and harming immigrant communities.

Conclusion

By tracing how immigration is constructed through words, interpreted through psychological frameworks, and reinforced through policy, we hope this page helped you critically re-examine this term. Rather than a static concept, immigration is a living, socially constructed idea that shapes (and is shaped) by power, identity, and resistance, revealing the deeper human experiences behind movement and migration. We would like to acknowledge that while this page does not cover all forms and perceptions of immigration, it is a starting point for further reflection and dialogue about how we understand, discuss, and respond to immigration in our own lives.

Footnotes

  1. Nicola Bonelli, Eleonora Celoria, and Ferruccio Pastore, “The impact of narrativea s on policy-making at the national level: The case of Italy,” BRIDGES Working Papers 23 (2023): 33, https://www.bridges-migration.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BRIDGES-Working-Papers-23_The-impact-of-narratives-on-policy-making-at-the-national-level-the-case-of-italy.pdf. ↩︎
  2. Ethical Journalism Network and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Moving Stories: International review of how media cover migration,” ed. Aidan White, Ethical Journalism Network (Ethical Journalism Network, 2015): 29,
    https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/moving-stories-italy?swcfpc=1. ↩︎
  3. Bonelli, Celoria, and Pastore, “The impact,” 36. ↩︎
  4. Carles Vañó-Agulló, “Narrativas excluyentes en el Sur de Europa: un análisis comparativo digital de los discursos sobre la migración en las Islas Canarias y Lampedusa,” Revista Española De Sociología 34, no. 2 (2025): 26, https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2025.264a. ↩︎
  5. Ibid. ↩︎
  6. Chick Edmond and Old Dominion University, “Securitization of African migrants in Europe and North America,” ODU Digital Commons (2025): 12, https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/politicalscience_geography_pubs. ↩︎
  7. Vañó-Agulló, “Narrativas excluyentes,” 12. ↩︎
  8. Edmond and Old Dominion University, “Securitization of,” 9. ↩︎
  9. Bonelli, Celoria, and Pastore, “The impact,” 36. ↩︎
  10. “Early U.S. Naturalization Laws, Constitution Annotated, Congress.gov,  Library of Congress.” 2024. Congress.gov. 2024, https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C4-1-2-3/ALDE_00013163/. ↩︎
  11. Jennifer Elsea, 2025, “The Alien Enemy Act: History and Potential Use to Remove Members of International Criminal Cartels,” Congress.gov. April 2, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11269. ↩︎
  12. Kunal Parker, 2013, “LAW REVIEW.” New York University Law Review, https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-88-3-Moore.pdf. ↩︎
  13. Gerald L. Neuman, 1996, Immigrants, Borders, and Fundamental Law, Princeton University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7t84j. ↩︎
  14. “Immigration Act of 1924.” 1924. San Diego State University, https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1924ImmigrationAct.pdf. ↩︎
  15. Mae M. Ngai, “Deportation Policy and the Making and Unmaking of Illegal Aliens” in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, ed. William Chafe, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, and Julian Zelizer (Princeton University Press, 2004), 56-90, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhr9r.11?seq=1.  ↩︎
  16. Adam Henry Callister, Quinn Galbraith, and Alexandra Carlile, 2021, “Politics and Prejudice: Using the Term ‘Undocumented Immigrant’ over ‘Illegal Immigrant.’” Journal of International Migration and Integration 23 (July),  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-021-00852-y. ↩︎
  17. “Alabama Public Schools: Whites Only / No Latinos.” Political cartoons. July 7, 2011. Eastern Group Publications Inc, https://epluribusunumjcom2010.wordpress.com/cartoons/ ↩︎
  18. Cambridge Dictionary. “Undocumented.” Cambridge English Dictionary. Cambridge University Press & Assessment, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/undocumented. ↩︎
  19. J.F. Dovidio and Esses, V.M, (2001), Immigrants and Immigration: Advancing the Psychological Perspective, Journal of Social Issues, 57: 378-387, https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00219. ↩︎
  20. David Macdonald. “News Media Focus on ‘Illegal’ Immigrants Drives How Americans Think about Immigration Policy.” LSE, June 12, 2025. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2025/06/12/news-media-focus-on-illegal-immigrants-drives-how-americans-think-about-immigration-policy/. ↩︎
  21. Harrison Ray, “National TV News Media Aired B-Roll of Scenes from the U.S. Southern Border in Immigration Segments Entirely Unrelated to Border Policy,” Media Matters for America, September 20, 2024. https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/national-tv-news-media-aired-b-roll-scenes-us-southern-border-immigration-segments. ↩︎
  22. Anu Joshi, “Three Ways the Media Introduces Bias to the Immigration Debate,” American Civil Liberties Union, October 7, 2024. https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/three-ways-the-media-introduces-bias-to-the-immigration-debate. ↩︎
  23. Joshi, “Three Ways the Media Introduces Bias to the Immigration Debate.” ↩︎
  24. Mae M. Ngai, “The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race in Immigration Law,” in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, ed. William Chafe, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, and Julian Zelizer (Princeton University Press, 2004), 22-23, https://www.benjaminjameswaddell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Ngai-Chapter-1.pdf.  ↩︎
  25. A. Warner Parker, “The Ineligible to Citizenship Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924,” The American Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (1925): 24, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2189081.   ↩︎
  26. Lisa A. Flores, “Migration and more: the entanglements within and beyond the Immigration Act of 1924,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 110, no. 4 (2024): 624-26, https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2024.2404527. ↩︎
  27. Ngai, “The Johnson-Reed,” 23. ↩︎
  28. David A. Reed, “America of the Melting Pot Comes to an End,” New York Times, April 27, 1924, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/04/27/issue.html. ↩︎
  29. Ngai, “The Johnson-Reed,” 23. ↩︎
  30. John Weber, “The Immigration Act of 1924 and Farm Labor,” Labor Studies in Working Class History 20, no. 4 (2023): 60, https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-10829171. ↩︎
  31. A. Warner Parker, “The Ineligible,” 24. ↩︎
  32. Mae M. Ngai, “The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law: A Reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924,” The Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 69, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2567407. ↩︎
  33. Zainab Ramahi, “The Muslim Ban Cases: A Lost Opportunity for the Court and a Lesson for the Future,” California Law Review 108, no. 2 (2020): 562, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26977916. ↩︎
  34. Maheen Haider, “The Racialization of the Muslim Body and Space in Hollywood,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6, no. 3 (2019): 384, https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649219885982. ↩︎
  35. Stella Burch Elias, “Law as a Tool of Terror,” Iowa Law Review 107, no. 1 (2021): 18, https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/sites/ilr.law.uiowa.edu/files/2023-02/A1_Elias.pdf. ↩︎
  36. Terri D’Arrigo, “‘Muslim Ban’ Had Negative Impact on Health Care Use,” Psychiatric News 56, no. 10 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2021.10.4. ↩︎
  37. Jason Farago, “MoMA Protests Trump Entry Ban by Rehanging Work by Artists from Muslim Nations,” New York Times, February 3, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/moma-protests-trump-entry-ban-with-work-by-artists-from-muslim-nations.html. ↩︎
  38. Parviz Tanavoli, “The Prophet,” 1962/93, Bronze Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81167. ↩︎

Contributors

Aatiqah Aziz, Makda Baraki, Angelica Castillo, Mia Zhou

References

Bonelli, Nicola, Eleonora Celoria, and Ferruccio Pastore. “The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: The case of Italy.” BRIDGES Working Papers 23 (2023): 30-38.  
https://www.bridges-migration.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BRIDGES-Working-Papers-23_The-impact-of-narratives-on-policy-making-at-the-national-level-the-case-of-italy.pdf.

Callister, Adam Henry, Quinn Galbraith, and Alexandra Carlile. 2021. “Politics and Prejudice: Using the Term ‘Undocumented Immigrant’ over ‘Illegal Immigrant.’” Journal of International Migration and Integration 23 (July). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-021-00852-y.

Cambridge Dictionary. “Undocumented.” Cambridge English Dictionary. Cambridge University Press & Assessment. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/undocumented.

D’Arrigo, Terri. “‘Muslim Ban’ Had Negative Impact on Health Care Use.” Psychiatric News 56, no. 10 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2021.10.4.

“Definition of Illegal.” 2020. Collinsdictionary.com. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. February 13, 2020. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/illegal.

“Early U.S. Naturalization Laws, Constitution Annotated, Congress.gov, Library of Congress.” 2024. Congress.gov. 2024. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C4-1-2-3/ALDE_00013163/.

Edmond, Chick and Old Dominion University. “Securitization of African migrants in Europe and North America.” ODU Digital Commons (2025): 9-12. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/politicalscience_geography_pubs.

Elias, Stella Burch. “Law as a Tool of Terror.” Iowa Law Review 107, no. 1 (2021): 1-62. https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/sites/ilr.law.uiowa.edu/files/2023-02/A1_Elias.pdf.

Elsea, Jennifer. 2025. “The Alien Enemy Act: History and Potential Use to Remove Members of International Criminal Cartels.” Congress.gov. April 2, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11269.

Ethical Journalism Network and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Moving Stories: International review of how media cover migration.” Edited by Aidan White. Ethical Journalism Network. Ethical Journalism Network, (2015): 25-32.
https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/moving-stories-italy?swcfpc=1

Farago, Jason. “MoMA Protests Trump Entry Ban by Rehanging Work by Artists from Muslim Nations,” New York Times, February 3, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/moma-protests-trump-entry-ban-with-work-by-artists-from-muslim-nations.html.

Flores, Lisa A. “Migration and more: the entanglements within and beyond the Immigration Act of 1924.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 110, no. 4 (2024): 624-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2024.2404527.

Haider, Maheen. “The Racialization of the Muslim Body and Space in Hollywood.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6, no. 3 (2019): 382-395. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649219885982.

“Immigration Act of 1924.” 1924. San Diego State University. https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1924ImmigrationAct.pdf.

Mae M. Ngai, “Deportation Policy and the Making and Unmaking of Illegal Aliens” in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, ed. William Chafe, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, and Julian Zelizer (Princeton University Press, 2004), 56-90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhr9r.11?seq=1. 

Ngai, Mae M. “The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law: A Reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924.” The Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 67-92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2567407.

Ngai, Mae M. “The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race in Immigration Law.” In Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, edited by William Chafe, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, and Julian Zelizer. Princeton University Press, 2004.  https://www.benjaminjameswaddell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Ngai-Chapter-1.pdf.

Neuman, Gerald L. 1996. Immigrants, Borders, and Fundamental Law. Princeton University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7t84j.

Parker, A. Warner. “The Ineligible to Citizenship Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924.” The American Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (1925): 23-47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2189081.  

Parker, Kunal. 2013. “LAW REVIEW.” New York University Law Review. https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-88-3-Moore.pdf.

Ramahi, Zainab. “The Muslim Ban Cases: A Lost Opportunity for the Court and a Lesson for the Future.” California Law Review 108, no. 2 (2020): 557-586. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26977916.

Vañó-Agulló, Carles. “Narrativas excluyentes en el Sur de Europa: un análisis comparativo digital de los discursos sobre la migración en las Islas Canarias y Lampedusa.” Revista Española De Sociología 34, no. 2 (2025): 12-26. https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2025.264

Weber, John. “The Immigration Act of 1924 and Farm Labor.” Labor Studies in Working Class History 20, no. 4 (2023): 60-68. https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-10829171.