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Immigration Law Commons™

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Anthropology

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Immigration Law

The Juarez Wives Club: Gendered Citizenship And Us Immigration Law, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz Apr 2016

The Juarez Wives Club: Gendered Citizenship And Us Immigration Law, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

When US citizens sponsor their undocumented
spouses for lawful status, they find themselves at
the center of immigration petitions. They are
invasively scrutinized, treated with bureaucratic
indifference, and separated from their loved ones.
As this “politics of exception,” which often targets
migrants, is unleashed on US citizens, they learn
that their citizenship offers little protection from
dehumanizing treatment. Instead, restrictive
immigration criteria, designed in theory to boost
the value of US citizenship, in practice dehumanize
US citizens and can alienate them from feelings of
national belonging. This contradiction inevitably
emerges when shared lives disrupt the boundaries of
citizenship status, illuminating …

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The Punishment/El Castigo: Undocumented Latinos And U.S. Immigration Processing, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz Jul 2015

The Punishment/El Castigo: Undocumented Latinos And U.S. Immigration Processing, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

For undocumented people who become eligible for a US immigrant visa, the pathway to lawful status bifurcates around one central question: how did you get into the USA? While most visa overstayers can adjust their status within the USA, undocumented border crossers must leave the USA to change their status. When they do, all but a few trigger a 10-year bar—often called ‘el castigo’ in Spanish or ‘the punishment’—on their return. This paper draws on a three-year ethnographic study to explore the process of legalisation for Latinos who entered and lived in the USA unlawfully. I pay particular attention to …

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Of Coyotes, Cooperation, And Capital: Social Capital And Women’S Migration At The Margins Of The State, Anna O. Oleary Jan 2012

Of Coyotes, Cooperation, And Capital: Social Capital And Women’S Migration At The Margins Of The State, Anna O. Oleary

Anna Ochoa OLeary

Examined here are some of the tenets of social capital in the context of the migrants’ crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without official authorization. Using this context helps identify how social capital development is weakened by the structural and gendered dimensions of migration, contributing to the rise in undocumented border crosser deaths since 1993.

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Mujeres En El Cruce: Entre La Separación Y Reunificación Familiar En Epoca De (In)Seguridad, Anna O. Oleary Jan 2011

Mujeres En El Cruce: Entre La Separación Y Reunificación Familiar En Epoca De (In)Seguridad, Anna O. Oleary

Anna Ochoa OLeary

De los problemas que confrontan mujeres emigrantes, el abandono en el desierto es la mas desconocida hasta últimamente. Este problema señala una relación fuerte entre la aplicación de las leyes migratorias y las presiones económicas que mujeres de comunidades los lazos familiares trasnacionales. Las narrativas de mujeres inmigrantes demuestran que al reconciliar las tendencias opuestas de reunificación y separación familiar, el tránsito migratorio se fortalece.

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Mujeres En El Cruce: Remapping Border Security Through Migrant Mobility, Anna O. Oleary Jan 2009

Mujeres En El Cruce: Remapping Border Security Through Migrant Mobility, Anna O. Oleary

Anna Ochoa OLeary

In this article I discuss some of the findings of my study of the encounter between female migrants and immigration enforcement authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border. An objective of the research was to ascertain a more accurate picture of women temporarily suspended in the “intersection” of diametrically opposed processes, immigration enforcement and transnational mobility. Of the many issues that have emerged from this research, family separation is most palpable. This suggests a deeply entrenched economic relationship between family separation and measures to better secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Indeed, women’s accounts of crossing into the U.S. without authorization, as one of …

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