We Have Something to Say: Ideas and Mobilization in the Migrant Solidarity Movement

Despite the existence of strong anti-immigrant sentiments across the United States, a movement in solidarity with undocumented migrants has emerged in southern Arizona and other heavily traveled border regions. Based on participatory research with the organization No More Deaths / No Mas Muertes, this thesis works towards an understanding of the ways in which this migrant solidarity movement reframes migration within a highly oppositional ideational space. My research suggests that, when examining movements that strongly reject accepted viewpoints, it is important to understand framing not only through analysis that examines a movement or organization as a whole, but also to focus attention the ways individuals build worldviews and make personal decisions to act as part of an oppositional movement. Engaging with literature on social movement framing of contentious issues, I propose the concept of a personal framing process through which individuals in the migrant solidarity movement explain and justify their actions