Raciolinguistic Exceptionalism

This chapter analyzes the discursive practices that enable Donald Trump and his affiliates to (re)produce immigrant illegality: the idea that violations of immigration law are iconic of an “illegal,” dangerous personal character that makes undocumented migrants unimaginable as members of the United States. In its migration discourse, the Trump administration takes up a US policy regime that conflates the legal category “illegal alien” and the cultural image of “the south-of-the border” migrant as a criminal outsider. As immigrant illegality disproportionately impacts certain groups, especially migrants from Mexico and Central America, it is racializing. Although Trumpian migration discourse builds on enduring racial projects, it is remarkable in making racialization overt: something that has been taboo in public speech since the Civil Rights movement. The chapter argues that the administration is able to normalize overt racialization by constructing it as commonsense, a form of truth posited as inherent and obvious without critical analysis.