In 2020, a group of residents of the rural Transylvanian Hungarian-majority municipality of DitrĂł (in Hungarian), or DitrÄu (in Romanian), mobilised themselves against two Sri Lankan bakers. Mainstream media portrayed the incident as xenophobic and racist, the locals as right-wing extremists, and the Sri Lankans as merely âmigrant workersâ, turning the âDitrÄu incidentâ into Romaniaâs first and most important nationwide immigration debate. This article analyses what the media-coverage of these events tells us about the countryâs approach to immigration, and how the symbols, signs, languages, meanings, knowledges, and memories articulated around the âDitrÄu incidentâ make this and other relatable events feed into this approach. We employ discourse analysis, including Lotmanâs cultural semiotics, and engage with the institutional, political, and historical framing of âthe incidentâ, as well as the broader socio-political and historical context of Romaniaâs immigration debate. In this way, we argue that, first, the âDitrÄu incidentâ was instrumental to Romaniaâs dominant societal core in portraying itself as closer to âthe Westâ, its absolution of any responsibility for xenophobia and racism, the reproduction of the hegemony of neoliberalism and the middle-class ideology, and the construction of âdiligent migrant workersâ. Second, âthe incidentâ was fundamental in the silencing, individualisation, and invisibilisation of working-class voices and particularising Transylvanian Hungarians as racists and extremists. Finally, it allowed Romanian mainstream actors to brand their nation as open, tolerant, and humane, while normalising the commodification and overexploitation of third-country migrant labour.