Immigration restrictions in parliaments are legitimated through standardized argumentative topoi and fallacies.

Evidence

Apart from the well-known rhetoric of nationalism, populism, or human rights mentioned above, what is perhaps most fascinating in parliamentary debates on immigration are the argumentative moves, for instance, those that are used to legitimate immigration restrictions. Many of these moves have become standard arguments or topoi, such as the reference to our (“white man’s”) financial burden, the regrettable reference to “resentment” in the country, the suggestion of receiving refugees in their own country, the need to listen to the will of the people, and so on. Similarly, such argumentations are replete with fallacies of various kinds. Credibility rather than truth is managed by referring to authoritative sources or opinion makers, such as scholars or the Church. Selected but emotionally effective examples are used either of immigration fraud or of torture by foreign regimes in order to argue against or for liberal immigration laws for refugees, in both cases giving in to the fallacy of generalization from single cases. Again, the overall strategy in the selection of argumentative moves is positive selfpresentation and negative other-presentation. The Others in such a case may be not only the immigrants, but also those members of (opposed) political parties who defend their rights, or vice versa, those who are seen to infringe upon such rights. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1117

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis of elite discourse and the classic analysis of parliamentary racism.