Building a Pro-Worker, Pro-Immigrant Narrative

The Challenge

Working people drive the economy, and immigrants are central to that story. That makes the fight for immigrant rights inseparable from the fight for workers’ rights. Yet too often, these movements have operated in separate lanes, missing opportunities to build a shared story about working people, our common interests, and the future we’re fighting for.

Through the Pro-Worker & Pro-Immigrant Narrative Accelerator, Winning Jobs Narrative Education (WJN Education) and Wonder partnered to bridge that divide by bringing together advocates from the immigrant rights, small business, and labor movements around a proactive vision for working people and the economy. The goal, guided by the expertise of advisors representing these movements, was to develop a unified pro-worker, pro-immigrant narrative and strategy that both activates existing supporters and persuades people who are more conflicted about immigration.

 

Heartwired Insight and Strategy

Finding a shared “north star”

Working people — many of whom are primarily focused on the cost of living and do not see immigration as related to their own economic future — represent an important persuadable audience. By building a shared identity among working people that is inclusive of immigrants, we can build broad support for solutions that ensure working people have the tools and opportunities to build a good life.

We began by guiding the advisors — each representing distinct constituencies and priorities — through an exercise to identify a set of shared goals for change. Finding common ground in these goals was a meaningful accomplishment in itself, given how often organizations are forced to work in siloes despite their shared interests and stakes. As the final step in this exercise, the Narrative Accelerator coalesced around a final list of goals that align with the concerns and aspirations of working people. The exercise produced representative examples of the policies and solutions coalition members want to see, that working people can see themselves reflected in, giving the research a concrete “north star.” 

The goals were not intended to capture the full range of coalition priorities or prescribe a single policy agenda, but rather, helped make the work concrete while giving us a common foundation for exploring how immigration and economic issues connect in people’s lives:

• Strengthening worker protections and holding bad actors accountable while incentivizing good employers to create good jobs.
• Strengthening the workforce by expanding pathways to citizenship, increasing workers’ power over their visas, and reducing barriers to workforce development and credentialing.
• Increasing wages and providing economic relief to address the rising cost of living.

Understanding the narrative landscape

With these shared goals in mind, we examined how immigration and the economy were discussed across English and Spanish language mainstream media, social media, and podcasts and whether, and how, those goals showed up in the conversation.

The findings pointed to three prominent narratives (phrased from our audience’s perspective):

1. Economic instability caused by tariffs, and deportations and raids that lead to labor shortages
2. ICE and government overreach and harm — more often from left-wing media or commentators
3. Erosion of American culture and values, framing immigration as a threat or drain — from right-wing media and commentators

Our landscape research revealed a significant gap in the narratives shaping how people understand work and immigration: storytelling rarely connects immigration, workers, and a vision of shared economic prosperity. The shared goals for change we want to see are largely missing from the conversation in the media and social media. That gap is an opportunity to amplify more proactive messages and stories.

Understanding our audiences and their mindsets

We then surveyed non-college voters to understand nuances in how this broad audience views these issues and how prominent narratives were resonating with them, if at all. Three segments emerged:

• Hopeful supporters, who tend to see immigration as a shared benefit.
• Guarded traditionalists, the most challenging audience, who are more likely to see immigration as competition.
• Pragmatic builders, who hold both perspectives and see tradeoffs.

We brought these audiences into focus groups and tested content drawn from various sources: existing content from media, materials provided by advisors, and new messages and content we developed. We explored different frames, language, messengers, and tones to understand what could shift attitudes toward our change goals.

The research affirmed that this is an emotionally complex topic for our audiences, and persuasion would require careful strategy. Audiences are entering this conversation feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, especially about the rising cost of living. They are conflicted about immigration. They are deeply skeptical of experts who speak about immigration and the economy, and wary of messages and stories that feel overtly political. In this greater understanding about our audiences, we also found a clear path forward.

Leading with what people care about

Applying our learnings from qualitative research in quantitative A/B testing, we found that the most effective content and messengers generally:

• Started with concerns about affordability, such as housing and rising prices.
• Built on positive beliefs about immigrants as hard workers and contributors.
• Acknowledged people’s genuine concerns rather than dismissing or talking past them.
• Focused on positive, practical solutions rather than simply describing what is wrong.
• Connected worker protections to a broader idea of “raising the floor” for everyone.
• Redirected economic frustration toward corporations and systems that make it harder for working people to get ahead.
• Used simple, accessible language rather than overwhelming audiences with facts.

Importantly, a compassion-only approach did not resonate with these audiences. In some cases, it caused backlash and decreased support for our goals. Messages were more effective when they connected immigration to people’s economic concerns and offered a positive vision for how change could benefit everyone.

Messengers matter

In a difficult persuasion environment where audiences’ trust is low, who delivers a message is just as important as what they say.

Messengers with credibility — based on how audiences perceived their lived experience and genuine motivations — performed particularly well. Small business owners, farmers, local leaders, and everyday people who could authentically describe a change in their own thinking were highly resonant. Influencers also tended to outperform traditional experts.

Advocates, experts, and faith leaders could be effective, but their success depended heavily on how they communicated. The lesson was not simply to find a “trusted messenger,” but to give credible people the tools to speak in ways that feel authentic and relevant to their audiences.

 

Results

The research yielded a clearer strategy for communicating about immigration and the economy for the broader field — and a practical way to put that strategy into action.

Coalition advisors reflected on the findings and identified shifts in how they could approach their work, including connecting immigration to economic concerns, centering working people, emphasizing solutions, and using credible, relatable messengers.

From these insights, Wonder and WJN Education developed a Pro-Worker & Pro-Immigrant Narrative Toolkit and tailored guidance for messengers across the movement — including union leaders, small business owners, farmers, local leaders, faith leaders, advocates, economic experts, creators, and trusted peers.

These resources translate the research into practical tools that communicators can use in their day-to-day work: talking points, examples, and interactive exercises that help messengers apply the narrative strategy to their own voices and audiences. View the full set of tools here.

Ultimately, the project helped move a diverse coalition toward a shared narrative approach — and gave partners a stronger foundation for communicating about immigration not as a standalone issue, but as part of a broader vision for an economy that works for working people.

For organizations seeking to build durable support for social change, the project offers an important lesson: persuasion doesn’t require abandoning your values. It requires finding the points of connection between what your audience already cares about and the change you want to see.

The next phase of this work, which is currently underway, is socialization and training on the narrative framework that emerged, helping partners across the movement put these insights into practice and build toward a proactive narrative. To view the schedule of upcoming trainings, or if your organization would like to learn more about these findings and recommendations, please contact caroline@wonderforgood.com. 

 

About WJN Education

WJN Education is a fiscally sponsored project of North Main Street Fund, a Section 501(c)(3) public charity. WJN Education conducts research, narrative development, education, and training to build shared language and strengthen how stakeholders communicate about the economy across workers, leaders, donors, and institutions. Learn more at wjneducation.org.