At FrameWorks, we consider it our personal and moral mission to support those working to build a more humane immigration system. While we certainly don’t have all the answers, we join in the shared outrage over current injustices and harms and want to offer support where we can.
One thing we know is that the language we use to demand that change affects how people think about immigration. And if we aren’t intentional, the language we use to highlight protections for immigrants can inadvertently lead people towards thinking about the need to protect “us” from immigrants.
That’s because the U.S. public’s understanding of law and immigration interact in ways that focus attention on crime. Here’s how we’ve seen this thinking work:
- A Law = Criminal Law mindset leads people to assume that any discussions of the law are necessarily about criminal law, directing thinking towards discipline and punishment.
- This mindset exists alongside harmful mindsets about immigration, like Immigrants as “Them” (which positions immigrants as a dangerous “other” who threaten some version of “us”) and a Lawbreakers mindset (which equates immigrants who are undocumented with criminals). That means that discussions of immigration law can easily make people focus on three things: enforcement, detainment, and detention.
“Well, if it’s illegal to enter the country and not be documented then by default, you’re a criminal. Now, does that put you on the same level as a criminal that is murdering people? No, but it’s still essentially a crime… So yes, by default, you are a criminal if you enter a country against their laws.”
—Focus group participant, June 2025
These mindsets all come together to focus attention on punishing immigrants and enforcing the law—and the administration is doing everything it can to strengthen these mindsets and make people think that ICE is “just enforcing the law.”
To counter their framing, we may be tempted to argue over enforcement of the law and the illegality of much of what the administration is doing. But when the debate stays about whether and how to enforce the law, we’re on losing ground. In the context of conversations about enforcement, it can seem to people like simple common sense that we need to enforce the law—are we really suggesting that we not enforce it?
The good news is that people do think the ways in which the administration is enforcing the laws is inhumane:
“There’s just gotta be a better way to do it than secret police that are doing these massive raids like this.”
—Focus group participant, June 2025
“I would question whether or not they’re receiving whatever ‘due process’ is. And if illegal immigrants… What are their rights, legally, in this? Because they’re still humans, they still have rights.”
—Focus group participant, June 2025
This line of thinking is an opening—a way for us to make our case rather than staying stuck refuting frames and language we don’t want to reinforce. We can root our messages in a principle that most Americans still hold dear: We have a moral obligation to create a humane immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.
Our research suggests that to strategically counter the “just enforcing the law” trap:
- Back up and talk about how the system is designed. When we bring the failures of our system into view, we get out of the false choice between enforcing or not enforcing the law.
- Foreground the value of shared humanity, dignity, and respect. This highlights what people are already seeing—that current actions are not humane. And combined with step one, it orients people toward how to move forward, both in the short and long term.
Here’s what this might look like:
Our laws lay the groundwork for the kind of society we live in. Laws that treat everybody with dignity and respect every person’s humanity lay the groundwork for a moral society.
But right now, our immigration laws are anything but moral or humane. ICE is indiscriminately grabbing people off the street and holding them in detention centers, where they can’t see their children or access legal aid.
Americans want an immigration system that treats everybody with dignity and respect—and there is widespread support for changes that would bring the system in line with our ideals. But those changes aren’t happening because our political system makes it hard to pass popular laws, and immigrant families and communities are paying the price for our government not listening to us.
We need to demand changes to our immigration laws. And in the meantime, we can’t allow the immoral, inhumane treatment of our neighbors to continue.
Depending on your particular communications context, you might want to build support for immediate actions we must take or lay the groundwork for more long-term change to our immigration laws. The example above is doing a bit of both, but you can vary your message to emphasize one or the other.
If you’d like further insight from FrameWorks research on talking about immigration, check out:
- Talking About Immigration Now: Moving Beyond the ‘Worthiness Trap’
- From Them to Ours: Framing Strategies for Talking About Immigrant Youth
- How Metaphors Catalyze and Crystallize Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Policy
Clara Blustein Lindholm serves as the Director of Research Interpretation for the Culture Change Project at the FrameWorks Institute.
Changing Conversations Around Immigration was originally published by FrameWorks Institute.
