Stratified Entry into Illegality: How Immigrations Policies Create Unequal Experiences of Illegality among Undocumented Young Adults in NYC
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27 Apr 2022
16:00-17:30, Clay Room, Nuffield College
- Sociology Seminar Add to Calendar
Queens College, CUNY
Abstract: Research shows that legal status is a critical axis of stratification but is less clear about the variably permeable boundaries around illegality and the systematic ways in which migrants are channeled into and out of the liminal states of illegality. Drawing on interviews with a diverse sample of 105 undocumented or formerly undocumented immigrant youth in New York City, we introduce the concept of stratified entry into illegality to illustrate how migrants’ nationality, race, and socioeconomic status shape their mode of entry which, in turn, shapes opportunities to adjust legal status. We connect notions of deservingness embedded in US immigration policies to the criminalization of those who enter the country without inspection, affording them fewer opportunities to attain legal residency compared to those who entered the country with a visa. We then situate the US case of stratified entry into illegality within a global regime of racialized criminalization of migrants, rooted in colonial and neocolonial relations of power and extraction.
The Sociology Seminar Series for Hilary Term is convened by Ginevra Floridi, Ramina Sotoudeh and Benjamin Elbers. For more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.