Running Head: WAR AT THE BORDER STUDENT PAPER War at the Border: Political and Media Portrayals of Illegal Immigration as an Attack on the United States Svilen V. Trifonov PhD Candidate University of Minnesota Abstract: In this essay, I analyze how far-right news outlet World Net Daily reported the 2014 "flood" of immigrant children from Central America. I conduct a discourse analysis utilizing theories of media framing and Othering to argue that the news stories create a frame in which the lives of immigrants fall outside a normative ideal of personhood which allows, and even invites, the perpetuation of anti-immigrant discourses and ideology characterized by the language of "invasion" and "war at the border." Keywords: immigration, media framing, invasion, border security (Essay presented during National Communication Association 101 st Annual Convention, Las Vegas, NV, November 2015)