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Immigration Reform: The Contrasting Views of the Press

Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences

Published online on

Abstract

The topic of immigration reform has been at the forefront of the political debate for many years. The debate has been especially intense in Arizona, a border state where sentiments over immigration are strong and which has, in the last decade, approved a series of measures directed to curtail the presence of unauthorized immigrants. Using the critical race theory notions of majoritarian storytelling and counter-storytelling as well as interest-convergence theory, the present study examined the types of arguments provided by the editorials of two newspapers in Arizona, The Arizona Republic and La Prensa Hispana, on the topic of immigration reform in the period between 2007 and 2011. Results show that the English-language publication justified the need for reform in the interests of American businesses, whereas the Spanish-language newspaper cited the well-being of the immigrant community.