Developing literature on late twentieth century U.S. immigration rhetoric has failed to attend adequately to the character of sovereignty claims in contemporary immigration politics. This essay demonstrates the centrality of sovereignty discourse by examining texts created by the state, specifically public affairs videos produced and distributed by a regional Media Services Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) between 1992 and 2000. The author argues that border imagery featured in INS media functions metonymically as both a symbol and an index of U.S. sovereignty. (Contains 73 endnotes.)