One prominent topic in Iranian media and political discourses, both before and after the recent conflict with Israel, has been the issue of Afghan migration to Iran and the regional impacts of this phenomenon. This article examines how Afghan migrants and migration policies have been represented in Iranian press and media between 2017 and 2025. Using corpus analysis, this study investigates the linguistic and discursive strategies employed in Iran’s media coverage and compares the differences between the periods before and after the escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel. The focus of this study is on differing perspectives among realist, principlist, and reformist media outlets regarding the portrayal of the Afghan migration. Additionally, discursive differences in the representation of Afghan migrants compared to Iranian citizens are analyzed. The findings of this study can illuminate media patterns, discursive shifts following political crises, and the impact of these representations on public opinion