Begränsande diskurser: en diskursiv policystudie av USAs gräns- och immigrationspolitik utifrån Executive Order 13767

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the discourse of Executive Order 13767 by applying Carol Bacchi’s discourse analytical method What’s the problem represented to be on the document, surrounding debates and speeches. Signed by President Donald Trump, it states that a wall should be built on the border between the US and Mexico. The thesis presents the problem representations in the policy and examine how they came to be, through which discourses and institutions they were enabled and what kinds of effects the order has on different groups of people. Theories on border control and citizenship as well as Arjun Appadurai’s theory “Fear of small numbers” are used to discuss the connections between what is said in Executive Order 13767, and the underlying discourse. The analysis concludes that the Order is based on discourses of border control as necessary for national security and for the construction of a national identity, as well as discourses regarding the threat of immigrant minorities towards the national majority. The thesis call into question how the policy disregards the socio-economic conditions of undocumented immigrants, and how calling the immigrants instead of the action of undocumented border crossing “illegal” affects the immigrants discursively and subjectively.