The Trump administration’s framing of the MS-13 gang: narrowing the borders of belonging with homeland maternity

ABSTRACT This article reveals how the Trump administration constructed an anti-immigrant narrative tailored for Central Americans that modified established anti-Mexican nativism. By reinscribing a hegemonic “mythos” about gangs, harnessing homeland maternity, and representing undocumented Central Americans as a primary factor for MS-13’s presence and waves of violence, the administration portrayed Central American immigration as an existential threat to America. Analyzing this rhetoric elucidates an intervention in contemporary nativism by showing how its rhetoricity relies on the bordering power of security discourse, racialized fears relating to non-white population expansion, and a racial interpellation facilitated by homeland maternity.