This century has seen an increase in nationalist leaders and parties in government. Such leaders and parties often use anti-immigrant rhetoric as a means to position themselves or their parties. Examples of such rhetoric can be found all over the world. At one end of the scale, leaders like Viktor Orban in Hungary and Donald Trump in the United States are voicing extreme anti-refugee positions in which refugees are consistently referred to as ‘immigrants’ and are portrayed as raping, thieving hordes who will force their religious views onto an unsuspecting host society. At the other end of the scale is the more creeping language used in the Brexit referendum of ‘taking back control over our sovereign borders’ and the emergence of a new political party in South Africa demanding the expulsion of all immigrants as ‘they take our jobs’. Often the facts are diametrically opposite from the ‘fake news’ voiced by nationalist movements. This type of rhetoric is slowly becoming more mainstream as other participants in the political or civic arena are taking on the frame pushed by the nationalist agenda. This panel examines what the role is of legal practitioners in various jurisdictions, especially those working in immigration or human rights law, to counter such fact-free rhetoric. Should legal practitioners quietly get on with their jobs and keep the politics out of their jobs as much as possible? Or is it useful to insistently vocalise dissent? If so, what do we need in our toolbox? Should one challenge the facts and ignore the underlying sentiments, or address those sentiments too? Is a human rights agenda the best way to counter this rhetoric?