scholarly journals The Case for a National Legalization Program without Legislation or Executive Action: Results from Screening for Immigration Legal Options

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
Jeanne M. Atkinson ◽  
Tom K. Wong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Length Of Residence ◽  
National Project ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Executive Action ◽  
Permanent Residents

This article presents the results of a study that finds that as many as two million unauthorized immigrants in the United States could have a path to permanent legal status. However, these immigrants may not know that they are eligible for legal status, much less be able to afford the costs or take the necessary steps to obtain it. The two million figure is drawn from an analysis of screening data from 4,070 unauthorized immigrants from 12 states. The study highlights the profound impact that a national project to screen for legal status would have on the entire US population, including eligible immigrants, their family members, and the country at large. The need for legal screening has become particularly acute in light of the Trump administration’s focus on apprehension and deportation of unauthorized immigrants without regard to their length of residence in the United States, family relationships to US citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs), or other positive factors. The proposed termination of benefits for many Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 1 recipients would add more than one million individuals — approximately 325,000 ( Warren and Kerwin 2017 ), and 700,000 ( Krogstad 2017 ) people, respectively — to the pool of unauthorized immigrants.

scholarly journals National Identity and Integration Challenges of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Recipients

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Sofia Paschero ◽  
Jody McBrien
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Driver's License ◽  
Everyday Realities ◽  
American Society

Approximately 650,000 children and young adults currently reside in the United States with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, providing them with temporary legal status to reside in the country. We explored the phenomenon of how five DACA recipients experienced their national identities and how it contributed to their acculturation patterns using in-depth semi-structured interviews. We interpreted their comments through the theoretical lens of Berry’s (1997) acculturation theory and Edensor’s (2002) emphasis on everyday life as a critical factor of national identity. Although the participants had the desire to remain in the United States and be a part of U.S. culture, everyday realities of discrimination, and challenges accomplishing common life tasks taken for granted by American peers (getting a driver’s license, travelling, working, obtaining financial aid for higher education) kept the participants from fully integrating into American society and gaining a sense of belonging.

DACAmented Homecomings: A Brief Return to Mexico and the Reshaping of Bounded Solidarity Among Mixed-Status Latinx Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-165
Author(s):  
Alissa Ruth ◽  
Emir Estrada
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Dynamics ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
Country Of Birth ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Mixed Status ◽  
Depth Interviews

This study builds on the intergenerational family dynamics literature among mixed legal status families. Through in-depth interviews with beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) who traveled to Mexico and their undocumented parents who stayed in the United States, we uncover how their journey back to their country of birth influenced their roles within their families and the immigrant community. DACA recipients experienced feelings of guilt when traveling back to Mexico and leaving their parents behind, but they adopted a new role of family ambassador and transnational mediator. Through this experience, they developed a greater empathy toward their parents’ sacrifices and reshaped their bounded solidarity with their parents and the immigrant community. As a result, they justify a movement away from personally identifying with the traditional Dreamer narrative.

A Reason to Wait: The Effect of Legal Status on Teen Pregnancy

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 213-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elira Kuka ◽  
Na’ama Shenhav ◽  
Kevin Shih
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teen Pregnancy ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Teenage Fertility

Although teen pregnancy has been on the decline in the United States, it remains among the highest within developed countries. Hispanics, who are more likely to be undocumented immigrants, lead this trend, yet the role of legal status has yet to be considered. To investigate this question, we examine teenage fertility responses to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary legal status to undocumented youth. We find that DACA reduced the likelihood of having a teenage birth by 1.6 percentage points and eliminated roughly half of the gap in teenage childbearing between documented and undocumented women.

More than victims: Resiliency of undocumented Latinas near Chicago, United States, and the strategic use of psychological suffering in obtaining legal status

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-368
Author(s):  
Stephanie Jean Kohl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Psychological Suffering ◽  
Visa Application ◽  
Biological Citizenship

Caught between abusive partners and restrictive immigration law, many undocumented Latina women are vulnerable to domestic violence in the United States. This article analyzes the U-Visa application process experienced by undocumented immigrant victims of domestic violence and their legal advisors in a suburb of Chicago, United States. Drawing on theoretical concepts of structural violence and biological citizenship, the article highlights the strategic use of psychological suffering related to domestic violence by applicants for such visas. It also investigates the complex intersection between immigration law and a humanitarian clause that creates a path towards legal status and eventual citizenship.

Pathways to Legalization: Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in the US/Mexico Borderlands, 1942–1956

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Elizabeth Rosas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
Agricultural Laborers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Contract Laborers

In the 1940s, curbing undocumented Mexican immigrant entry into the United States became a US government priority because of an alleged immigration surge, which was blamed for the unemployment of an estimated 252,000 US domestic agricultural laborers. Publicly committed to asserting its control of undocumented Mexican immigrant entry, the US government used Operation Wetback, a binational INS border-enforcement operation, to strike a delicate balance between satisfying US growers’ unending demands for surplus Mexican immigrant labor and responding to the jobs lost by US domestic agricultural laborers. Yet Operation Wetback would also unintentionally and unexpectedly fuel a distinctly transnational pathway to legalization, marriage, and extended family formation for some Mexican immigrants.On July 12, 1951, US president Harry S. Truman’s signing of Public Law 78 initiated such a pathway for an estimated 125,000 undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers throughout the United States. This law was an extension the Bracero Program, a labor agreement between the Mexican and US governments that authorized the temporary contracting of braceros (male Mexican contract laborers) for labor in agricultural production and railroad maintenance. It was formative to undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers’ transnational pursuit of decisively personal goals in both Mexico and the United States.Section 501 of this law, which allowed employers to sponsor certain undocumented laborers, became a transnational pathway toward formalizing extended family relationships between braceros and Mexican American women. This article seeks to begin a discussion on how Operation Wetback unwittingly inspired a distinctly transnational approach to personal extended family relationships in Mexico and the United States among individuals of Mexican descent and varying legal statuses, a social matrix that remains relatively unexplored.

Consular Protection and Solidarity across Borders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Délano Alonso
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Working Together

This chapter demonstrates how Latin American governments with large populations of migrants with precarious legal status in the United States are working together to promote policies focusing on their well-being and integration. It identifies the context in which these processes of policy diffusion and collaboration have taken place as well as their limitations. Notwithstanding the differences in capacities and motivations based on the domestic political and economic contexts, there is a convergence of practices and policies of diaspora engagement among Latin American countries driven by the common challenges faced by their migrant populations in the United States and by the Latino population more generally. These policies, framed as an issue of rights protection and the promotion of migrants’ well-being, are presented as a form of regional solidarity and unity, and are also mobilized by the Mexican government as a political instrument serving its foreign policy goals.

Labor Unions and Undocumented Immigrants: Local Perspectives on Transversal Solidarity During DACA and DAPA

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052098012
Author(s):  
Els de Graauw ◽  
Shannon Gleeson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Undocumented Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Immigrant Rights ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Immigrant Organizations ◽  
Local Perspectives

National labor unions in the United States have formally supported undocumented immigrants since 2000. However, drawing on 69 interviews conducted between 2012 and 2016 with union and immigrant rights leaders, this article offers a locally grounded account of how union solidarity with undocumented immigrants has varied notably across the country. We explore how unions in San Francisco and Houston have engaged with Obama-era immigration initiatives that provided historic relief to some undocumented immigrants. We find that San Francisco’s progressive political context and dense infrastructure of immigrant organizations have enabled the city’s historically powerful unions to build deep institutional solidarity with immigrant communities during the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA [2012]) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA [2014]) programs. Meanwhile, Houston’s politically divided context and much sparser infrastructure of immigrant organizations made it necessary for the city’s historically weaker unions to build solidarity with immigrant communities through more disparate channels.

Immigrant Students in the Trump Era: What We Know and Do Not Know

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 716-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi Nguyen ◽  
Maraki Kebede
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Educational Experiences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Political Divide

The 2016 U.S. presidential election marked a time of deep political divide for the nation and resulted in an administrative transition that represented a drastic shift in values and opinions on several matters, including immigration. This article explores the implications of this political transition for immigrants’ K-16 educational experiences during President Trump’s administration. We revisit literature on school choice and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—two policy areas where the most significant changes are expected to occur—as it pertains to immigrant students in the United States. We identify areas where there is limited scholarship, such as the unique educational experiences of various minority immigrant subgroups, the interplay between race and immigration status, and immigrant students in rural areas. Recommendations are made for policy and research.

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