New Forms of Exclusion and Manifestations of Racism in Barack Obama’s Rhetoric of Immigration Reform

In this master\u27s thesis I situate President Barack Obama\u27s 2011 speech on comprehensive immigration reform as representative of a larger body of immigration reform rhetoric and driving force behind current efforts to pass new legislation. I argue that the President\u27s rhetoric served to conceal a commitment to protect the economic interests of hegemonic whiteness that dominate in contemporary U.S. American society. In the different chapters of this thesis I interrogate rhetorical strategies that served to silence questions of racial segregation, racisms, and even race altogether. I examine and challenge President Obama\u27s ideological subscription to neoliberal principles and the language of late-capitalism that tend to portray immigrants as either economic commodities or threats. Despite a seemingly race-neutral language, President Obama defined the limits of national belonging as products of a public ideology dominated by whiteness, neoliberal politics, and enchantment with protecting national sovereignty and borders