Immigration Law Commons^™

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 …

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 …