Disenchanting Citizenship: Mexican Migrants and the Boundaries of Belonging

Notes

213 Notes introduction 1. The exception to this are individuals born in some U.S. possessions, such as American Samoa and Swains Island, who are U.S. nationals but not U.S. citizens; otherwise, all U.S. citizens are U.S. nationals. 2. See http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/08/04/rel10k.pdf. 3. I use the terms “migration” and “migrants” in place of “immigration” and “immigrants.” This usage is based on the recognition by migration scholars over the past several decades that migration is not always a planned one-way movement from one nation to another; instead, migration can take several forms, such as circular migration, return to nation of birth after retirement, and others. 4. The concept of “juridical,” as used here, follows the use invoked by Pierre Bourdieu (1986–1987). It refers to state-initiated action framed as part of “law”—i.e., actions that have the “force of law” (Bourdieu 1986–1987). This use is broader than that found in standard legal research and analysis, which generally limits it to actions related to a legal court. 5. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944); other parallel cases, such as Hirabayashi v. United States 320 U.S. 81 (1943), and Yasui v. United States 320 U.S. 114 (1943), challenged the constitutionality of the curfew order imposed on Japanese Americans. 6. See Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). 7. The most prominent anthropologists that have contributed to this literature are Renato Rosaldo, Aihwa Ong, and Michel Laguerre. Several recent dissertations have focused on citizenship-related issues. 8. Pierre Bourdieu (1999) refers to this general process as the “abdication of the state” and sees it as resulting in “la grande misère” (or “la misère du monde”) at the level of society, and in “positional suffering” at the individual level. 9. See table 20 for 2010, http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/YrBk10Na .shtm. 10. In the survey reported by Freeman, Plascencia, González Baker, and Orozco (2002) of individuals participating in English-as-a-second-language/citizenship courses and had applied for citizenship, 38 percent had been granted permanent resident status through the legalization programs under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. 11. Fuller descriptions of IRCA and the legalization provisions are found in Plascencia (2000). Although the term “perishable crop” would seem to need no explanation or comment, the opposite is true. It is a good example of the political nature of naming. Under the administrative rules written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and based on the political strength of crop production associations, some crops that the average person would regard as a perishable crop were not included, and others that most individuals would likely never regard as a perishable crop, such as grass sod, became such. 12. The final number that will have been legalized under IRCA is still not determined . Two class-action suits filed on behalf of persons eligible to apply but were not allowed to apply by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) led to an agreement signed by Secretary Tom Ridge (Department of Homeland Security) that will allow between 60,000 and 400,000 of those individuals, seventeen years later, to apply for temporary residence, later permanent residency, and eventually U.S. citizenship . See Catholic Social Services v. Tom Ridge, et al., and Felicity Mary Newman et al. v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). The CIS estimates the lower number and migrant-advocates the higher total. 13. See 66 Stat. 163. 14. The reasons for not aggressively pursuing the enforcement of employer sanctions have varied since IRCA’s enactment. Under President Reagan’s regime, the priority was fighting Communism (primarily in Central America) and the War on Drugs; President George H. W. Bush’s regime, while continuing some of President Reagan’s interest, shifted the national priority to Iraq; under President Clinton, controlling the border and ending welfare as we know it became major concerns; and under President George W. Bush, the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War have come to dominate U.S. policy concerns. In its first two and a half years, the Obama administration has removed a larger number of informally authorized migrants, but these were not related to the enforcement of the nation’s employer sanctions law. Thus, despite the recognition that the availability of U.S. jobs is a major stimulus...