"'Migrants as a threat': A comparative analysis of securitarian rhetoric in the European Union (France) and the United States (California)"

Ceyhan, Ayse. (1997) "'Migrants as a threat': A comparative analysis of securitarian rhetoric in the European Union (France) and the United States (California)". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1997 (5th), May 29-June 1, 1997, pages 31, Seattle, WA.

Abstract

Since the early 1990s there has been a striking rhetorical similarity vis-à-vis immigration between the EU countries--especially France--and the U.S. It can be stressed in a comparative analysis of Pasqua and Debré Laws with California Proposition 187 and the new immigration law adopted in 1996. Analysis of these texts and the discourses produced by the security agencies and politicians reveal that immigration is more likely to be constructed related to border crossing, illegal immigration, crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, incivilities, urban violence and ethnicity are linked to each other. According to this construction, immigration threatens not only the state security but also the societal (identitarian) security. Among the rhetorical arguments there is a growing focus on cultural and identitarian ones. Nevertheless, the referent objects of the discourses are both state security and societal security. These two are more likely to be interpenetrated than separated. Furthermore, the new form of control implied by the new legislation adopted in both countries confirms this link: a bifocal control focused at the same time on the border and on the interior (especially via welfare controls).