To belong or not to belong, that is the DACA question.

This study looks at the relationship between shifts in policy and media framing of target groups (DACA recipients) and how these frames impacted DACA recipients’ sense of belonging and identity in the US. Through mapping shifts in frames grounded in Schneider and Ingram (1993) and Newton (2005, 2008) Lauby (2016), and Barbero (2019), this study found that the Obama Administration worked within the existing binary of framing DACA recipients as deserving through highlighting their youth, innocence, humanity, economic benefit, and pitting them against other irregular migrants to further emphasize their deservingness. The Trump Administration moved away from this through both overtly emphasizing DACA recipient’s illegality and covertly dehumanizing them through turning the policy into a political bargaining piece. This switch is reflected in the administration’s shift in policy with the rescinding of the DACA. As media generally echoed the political discourse, it did not have much of an impact on framing. This study found that while there was a clear shift in framing, framing per se had little direct impact on respondents’ sense of belonging and identity. Instead, it appeared that the effect of shifts in framing was indirect, impacting recipients’ sense of belonging by altering the publics’ perception of and behavior towards recipients.