ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors argue that the discourses surrounding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), including both dominant media representations and reported voices of the DACAmented themselves, function as modes of rhetorical racialization. They focus on representations of the DACAmented to ask how the discourse surrounding the repeal of DACA sheds light into the current machinations of race and whiteness. The authors suggest that in the constitutive rhetorical logic of deportability, support for DACA turns on two poles of race– pawnability and stoppage. Drawing then on the work of Sara Ahmed, they suggest that the constitutive logic of deportability is, at its core, an affective logic, primarily of race. The authors also focus on the prominent narratives of support– the good DACAmented immigrant and the fearful DACAmented immigrant. They conclude by naming the intersecting force of pawnability and stoppage the nightmare of whiteness.
