Similar to many other Euro-American nation-states, the support for right wing parties and their anti-immigration ideologies have also increased in Germany over the past 10 years. Simultaneously, the resistance to these discourses has been increasing. Thereby, this paper delves into the discursive framing of the migrant person in Germany in the context of the pre-federal elections in February 2025. From a Cultural Studies perspective, it conducts a comparative Critical Discourse Analysis between an excerpt of the 2025 right-extremist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and a counter reactionary grassroots viral video social media initiative by staff member of five medical facilities across Germany to examine the (il)legitimacy of migranticised populations within the nation-state. The findings suggest that the “migrant” person is culturally and ideologically produced as in-group or out-group members of the imagined community. On a larger level, they are further confined by the ‘naturalisation’ of nation-states, nationalised identity documents, administrative systems and borders. While the AfD discursively frames migranticised populations as culturally threatening and economically burdensome, the viral video initiative portrays them as socially cohesive and contributing members of society. Thereby, the data analysis implies that the legitimacy of migranticised populations as “in-group” members of Germany is predominantly contingent on perceived economic or structural utility, and secondarily on ideas of being culturally (non-)threatening.