The Legal Status Divide among the - Specialized Research AI at MIT

The Legal Status Divide among the
Children of Immigrants

Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Over the past thirty-five years, federal immigration policy has brightened the bound-
aries of the category of undocumented status. For undocumented young people who
move into adulthood, the predominance of immigration status to their everyday ex-
periences and social position has been amplified. This process of trying to continue
schooling, find work, and participate in public life has become synonymous with a
process of learning to be “illegal.” This essay argues that despite known variations
in undocumented youths by race, place, and educational history, undocumented
status has become what Everett Hughes called a “master status.” The uniform set
of immigration status–based exclusions overwhelms the impact of other statuses to
create a socially significant divide. The rise, fall, and survival of the Deferred Ac-
tion for Childhood Arrivals program, a policy offering qualified youths a temporary
semilegal status, have underlined how closely access and rights hew to the contours
of contemporary immigration policy.

S tudies of immigrant incorporation–also called assimilation and accul-

turation–have long been important to our understanding of the process-
es through which immigrants and their children adapt to American soci-
ety. More recently, as the experiences of today’s immigrants diverge considerably
from those of European immigrants of the twentieth century, scholars have not-
ed that immigrant incorporation does not play out evenly among different immi-
grant groups and that, for some, it does not follow a uniform and positive trajec-
tory.1 For those immigrants who are undocumented, incorporation prospects are
daunting.

Increased enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border has stemmed long-estab-
lished patterns of circular migration,2 leading to increased numbers of settled mi-
grants who are long-term stayers.3 Today, nearly one in four immigrants in the
United States lack legal status. And about one in nineteen U.S. workers are undoc-
umented.4 These immigrants have grown roots in their communities where they
are also raising families. Nearly half of all undocumented immigrants today are
parents of minors and more than 16.5 million people live in mixed-status house-
holds with members of varying immigration statuses. Among the children of un-

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documented immigrants, more than 4.5 million are native-born citizens, while
1.1 million are also undocumented (more than that number are now young adults
who have been in the United States since childhood).5

Over the last thirty-five years, immigration policy and enforcement practic-
es have diminished noncitizens’ rights and have made neighborhoods and public
spaces fertile ground for detention and deportation. As a result, immigration pol-
icy has become increasingly consequential in shaping how a larger share of immi-
grant youth adapt, come of age, and experience life in the United States.6 Today,
more than ever before, the legal status divide is at the crux of what differentiates
how the children of immigrants experience everyday life.

To be sure, undocumented immigrants are not a monolith. There is great di-
versity in their origins and their experiences in the United States, the latter shaped
by family background, place of residence, race, and educational level. These vary-
ing contours inform the experience of young people growing up under the con-
dition of illegality. However, even when considering the impacts of these other
social identities, undocumented status stands out as the primary factor in undoc-
umented young people’s everyday lives and their long-term trajectories. It has be-
come, in the words of sociologist Everett Hughes, a “master status.”

I n 1965, the Hart-Celler Act ushered in our contemporary era of immigration. It

eliminated national-origin quotas and created new family and skilled-worker
preference categories for entry. These changes opened up immigration from
previously restricted countries in Asia, yet also established caps on immigration
from the Western Hemisphere. As sociologist Douglas Massey and demographer
Karen Pren have argued, migration from Latin American countries surged in spite
of the new system, which changed the auspices under which they arrived: increas-
ingly as undocumented migrants.7

As the children of this post-1965 wave of immigrants began to come of age,
old debates about assimilation and belonging took a different form as many ques-
tioned the applicability of the canonized account of assimilation theory to con-
temporary immigrants.8 In particular, scholars pondered whether changing con-
texts and the racial and educational characteristics of these immigrants influ-
enced the pace or direction of their incorporation.

Recognizing growing stratification within the United States, scholars have
sought to identify different pathways of immigrant incorporation.9 To that end,
they focused on the interplay between human-level variables and structural and
contextual considerations in examining how and why immigrants fare differently.
Immigration status, racial discrimination, and economic climate were thought to
shape the children of immigrants’ likely paths. To be sure, the effects of racial ex-
clusion have endured over generations for groups such as Mexican Americans.10
But with increasing efforts to restrict opportunities for undocumented immi-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Legal Status Divide among the Children of Immigrants

grants, and a racialized enforcement regime, immigration status rapidly emerged
as a driver of immigrant incorporation.11

O ver the last thirty-five years, growing restrictions have intensified the

negative impact of undocumented status. Fewer pathways to legal sta-
tus and citizenship have trapped undocumented immigrants and their
children in a legal limbo, while U.S. policy has increasingly stripped their access
to social welfare programs. Coinciding with the incremental erosion of rights
has been the creation of what former Director of Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion Services Doris Meissner and her colleagues have called the “formidable de-
portation machine.”12 This new “machinery” has not only focused on removing
undocumented immigrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border, but it has
also extended its reach to the country’s interior. Increased staffing for the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforce-
ment (ICE) along with increased integration between local law enforcement and
ICE under 287(g) agreements and the Secure Communities program have created
an immigration dragnet wherein enforcement actions have increasingly resulted
from information gathered during local criminal justice and traffic enforcement,
snaring immigrants for improper lane changes and countless other noncriminal
offenses.13

Between 1997 and 2012, the U.S. government carried out more than twice the
total number of all deportations from the United States prior to 1997.14 In 2013
alone, the United States deported a record 438,421 immigrants.15 In fact, during
the Obama presidency, more than three million immigrants were removed from
the country.

Taken together, the restriction of rights and ramped up enforcement efforts
have had far-reaching effects across a greater number of people, including young
people.16 Deportations of parents and spouses have left a huge emotional and eco-
nomic void in family life while creating undue hardship for children left without
their parents and for families struggling to make ends meet without the economic
contributions of the deported family member.17 What’s more, fears of deporta-
tion have had particularly negative effects on the health and well-being of chil-
dren growing up.18 For undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, these
developments have contributed to their lives becoming increasingly difficult as
they reach adolescence and young adulthood.

U ndocumented status is generally perceived as a condition affecting only

adult migrants. But a growing body of research strongly suggests that liv-
ing in a mixed-status family and possessing undocumented status as an
adolescent and young adult negatively impacts a range of experiences, both in ev-
eryday life and along longer trajectories.19

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150 (2) Spring 2021Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Within mixed-status families, undocumented parents confront a wide range
of barriers in their day-to-day lives. They have trouble accessing health insurance
or opening a bank account. Fear of deportation makes them less likely to apply
for their citizen children’s food stamp and health care benefits even when eligi-
ble. Undocumented status often prevents families from accessing urgently need-
ed services from the very institutions intended to benefit immigrant families.
These children–both the foreign- and American-born–grow up in impoverished
households with limited supports. Such experiences of disadvantage unique to
undocumented status have particularly strong effects on childhood development,
health and well-being, and academic performance; effects not experienced by
other children of immigrants.20

But for those children who lack legal status themselves, growing up undocu-
mented erects multiple barriers along their adolescent and adult trajectories that
widen the divide among the children of immigrants. Owing to the 1982 Supreme
Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, they are legally integrated into K–12 schools.21 As
such, they develop identities and accumulate Americanizing experiences along-
side American-born citizen peers. Childhood thus constitutes a period of integra-
tion, as their school experiences allow them to develop feelings of belonging to
the United States as well as expectations and life aspirations rooted in American
culture.22

It is not until adolescence that undocumented youth embark on the “transition
to illegality,” beginning with the startling realization that rites of passage corre-
sponding to their life stage are closed off to them.23 At the time when friends are
obtaining driver’s licenses, seeking after-school jobs, and beginning the college
application process, undocumented youth come to realize how lacking lawful im-
migration status will prevent them from participating in these defining rites of
passage and will ultimately thwart their attempts at developing their desired adult
lives. Characterized by confusion, frustration, and vulnerability, this critical de-
velopmental stage is a major “turning point” away from normative developmen-
tal trajectories, producing a “jolting shift” in their self-perceptions and compel-
ling them to make adulthood transitions within similar social confines as their
undocumented parents.24

For most undocumented young people, knowledge of their immigration status
renders educational pursuits both financially unrealistic and unprofitable. Exclu-
sions from federal financial aid make it difficult for most undocumented youth
to finance their higher education. Further, just as they experience a shrinking of
access, their familial and financial responsibilities increase, forcing them into a
series of difficult decisions regarding work and travel. While some young people
respond to these changes through resistance, finding new strength to push for
their goals despite these barriers,25 others become disillusioned and lower their
aspirations.26

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Legal Status Divide among the Children of Immigrants

Access to educational supports, critical services, and extrafamilial adult men-
tors can mean the difference between successful college transitions and an early
entry into low-wage employment and illegalized daily lives.27 Those undocument-
ed youth who manage to make successful transitions to postsecondary educa-
tion–a very small proportion–are able to delay aspects of the transition to ille-
gality by avoiding low-wage work and remaining in supportive community and in-
stitutional contexts. However, college-going undocumented young people are not
immune from stigmatization, immigration status–related threats, family respon-
sibilities, financial concerns, or fears of deportation. These factors compel many
to stop out and delay their educational plans.28 Ultimately, without access to work
authorization, college-educated undocumented young people face the same lim-
ited and limiting job prospects after graduation and enter a low-wage workforce
even less prepared and more vulnerable than their peers who left school long be-
fore them.29 They, like their more modestly achieving counterparts, engage in a
process of “learning to be illegal.”30

Yet, like other groups, undocumented immigrants are not homogenous. The ef-
fects of illegality are, predictably, stratified by other demographic characteristics,
such as race, social class, and place of residence.31 Research has shown that Black
and Latin American–origin men, for example, are disproportionately targeted for
deportation.32 Perceptions of illegality are often informed by race.33 Research on
undocumented young people across racial and class backgrounds has uncovered
differential experiences across diverse racial and country of origin groups. For
lighter-skinned young people and those from higher social class backgrounds, the
stigma of being undocumented may be tempered, particularly at younger ages.34
These young people who possess a “phenotypic passport” experience fewer nega-
tive interactions with authorities and less fear of deportation.35

Additionally, the experience of undocumented status can vary widely across
geographies. Congressional gridlock over immigration policy spanning the last
two decades has moved immigration lawmaking to states, counties, and munic-
ipalities. This local lawmaking has led to an “uneven geography” of immigration
policies and practices across the country, ranging from integrative to exclusion-
ary.36 Whereas some states have opened up access to broader inclusion, offering
undocumented immigrants eligibility for driver’s licenses and in-state tuition at
public universities, others have adopted a more restrictive stance by attempting to
criminalize unauthorized presence and exclude undocumented immigrants from
public universities.37

Indeed, the places where immigrants settle, whether areas with well-estab-
lished infrastructures or new destinations that are less developed, play an impor-
tant role in structuring access to public transportation, critical services, and op-
portunities to participate in community life. Traditional gateways offer immi-
grants social, economic, educational, and legal assistance from vast community-

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150 (2) Spring 2021Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

based networks, but high costs of living can add strains to everyday life. Mean-
while, immigrants in new rural destinations may have an easier time finding em-
ployment and affordable housing but encounter a “constellation of rural disad-
vantage”38 that includes widespread poverty, limited opportunities for stable em-
ployment, underdeveloped social service and educational infrastructures, and
lack of public transportation.39

These observations underscore a growing reality that even among a group as-
sumed to be uniformly disadvantaged, key differences in the geographical settings
where they grow up can play an important role in shaping diverging experiences.
Nevertheless, federal policies–in particular, the limited opportunities to legalize
one’s status–inhibit the effect of inclusionary state policies. In analyzing recent
attempts in Colorado to improve postsecondary access for undocumented stu-
dents through state legislation, sociologist Lisa Martinez argues that while these
important local reforms have created some opportunities for young undocument-
ed people, legal limitations at the federal level leave them in holding patterns that
delay or impede their access to higher education and upward mobility.40

To be sure, the burgeoning scholarship on undocumented young people has
begun to expose the various layers of stratification structured by race and place.
But does stratification and difference render illegality any less consequential?

T he “master status” concept theorized by Hughes posits that the placement

of people in certain social categories powerfully constrains the character-
istics attributed to them by other categories.41 In other words, individu-
als possess a variety of status traits that shape a range of outcomes, including so-
cial mobility, personal identity, and treatment by others. However, some charac-
teristics are more prominent and, hence, overshadow other social categories to
emerge as the predominant attributes in one’s identity and experiences. In the
long term, the master status casts a shadow over those defined by it, oftentimes
freezing them in this definition.

Due to the intersecting nature of inequalities in the United States, there has
been some debate over whether one particular trait dominates all others or if it is a
constellation of traits that interacts with each other and at different places, times,
and spaces, any one of these different traits becomes more or less consequential.
In childhood, as youths participate in mainstream spaces, some social bound-
aries may be permeable and “blurred.”42 As undocumented youths move into
adulthood and out of mainstream spaces, however, they are increasingly likely to
encounter a wide range of “bright boundaries” that make unauthorized status an
exemplar of a master status.43 The vast majority of undocumented immigrants
have lived in the country, have contributed to the U.S. economy, and have partici-
pated in their communities for more than a decade. As such, they enjoy, and have
struggled for, spaces of belonging, building cultural citizenship in the process.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Legal Status Divide among the Children of Immigrants

Yet their legal designation and identity shape how they are treated and perceived,
deepening the divide between them and their legal counterparts.44

Social construction casts those possessing unauthorized status as criminal and
immoral. As a result, a set of social resources are withheld from them. Per U.S.
employment law, they cannot work legally. They are ineligible to vote. They also
cannot serve in the military or enroll in most work-readiness programs. They are
excluded from a growing range of social entitlement programs and have limit-
ed access to health care and social services. They cannot access driver’s licenses
in most U.S. states. They are ineligible for federal financial aid and a wide range
of federally funded postsecondary supports. They can be detained and removed
from the country at any time. In addition, setting up bank accounts, applying for
credit cards or loans, and accessing state identification is either impossible or ex-
tremely difficult.

In short, undocumented migrants live within a context that views their unau-
thorized status as a crime and frames them as a threat to American society and the
rule of law.45 The negative discourse about immigrants–in particular, those from
Latin America–is rooted in economic and cultural concerns.46 On the one hand,
they are perceived as taking jobs, seats in college, and scarce health care and so-
cial service resources from American citizens. On the other, they are seen as cul-
tural invaders threatening an American way of life.47 This discourse has been as-
sociated with a growing pattern of hate crimes and physical violence against im-
migrants that has also restricted their everyday routines and interactions with
institutions.48

Nonetheless, undocumented immigrants live in a society that is patterned by
numerous forms of stratification and inequality. Historically, immigration and
race have been intimately intertwined. It is impossible to tell the story of immi-
gration to the United States without retelling accounts of discrimination, exclu-
sion, and expulsion.49 To that end, immigration scholarship has highlighted the
salience of other traits such as race, class, gender, and place of residence in shap-
ing experiences and opportunity.

More recently, in studies of undocumented immigrant youth, scholars have ad-
vocated for an intersectional lens, suggesting that multiple social locations work
together to structure advantage and disadvantage.50 Building on earlier work that
sees systems of oppression as overlapping and producing specific marginalization
where multiple systems intersect,51 sociologists Zulema Valdez and Tanya Golash-
Boza note that for working-class undocumented Mexican university students, un-
authorized status, social class, and family educational history coconstruct their ex-
perience of higher education.52 Similarly, Laura Enriquez, in posing the question,
“a master status or a final straw?” suggests that other social locations, like race and
school tracking, “set the stage” for educational disadvantage.53 In this conceptual-
ization, undocumented status emerges as the “final straw” that pushes marginal-

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150 (2) Spring 2021Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

ized young people to leave school. These recent works rightfully demonstrate the
interaction between various statuses to shape opportunity and disadvantage.

So, is undocumented status one of a number of overlapping statuses that work
together to limit the experiences of undocumented young people? Or is it a mas-
ter status? According to Hughes, while master status is the central status that es-
tablishes one’s overall position in society, some statuses could be master statuses
in certain situations or until the presence of a more dominant status renders them
subordinate. Take, for example, race and gender. While in most situations, being a
physician or belonging to the middle class may override most other traits in one’s
identification, race and gender will often supersede these statuses in the larger so-
ciety. Therefore, the master status concept does, indeed, allow for the possibility
of a master status to be the dominant status in one situation but not necessarily
all others.

Hughes also introduced the notion of auxiliary traits, a set of complementary at-
tributes often associated with a master status. He noted that statuses have both a
primary trait–which marks insiders within the group from outsiders who are not
part of it–and a set of complementary traits. So, for example, the physician, who
has fulfilled certain educational and training requirements, is licensed to prac-
tice medicine.54 Here, the medical license is the primary trait. Related, the doctor
might possess certain auxiliary traits, like being upper-middle-class, White, and
male. These traits are often associated with physicians. But it is a possibility that
some people who possess the master status may lack some of these expected aux-
iliary characteristics. One might be a physician, but also be from a racial minority
group and/or be female.

These examples highlight the nuanced and flexible understanding of the mas-
ter status concept. Accordingly, a status can be dominant in one situation but be-
come subordinate in another (and vice versa). And within any given status, there
is a great deal of heterogeneity within associated statuses that yield different types
of stratification within groups. Hence, the master status concept and seemingly
more nuanced perspectives regarding intersectionality and stratification are not
mutually exclusive, and therefore not in tension.55 To be sure, undocumented im-
migrants are diverse in both race and class. They may occupy various positions
within the U.S. education system that differently structure educational attain-
ment. Their racial and ethnic backgrounds may make them targets for discrim-
ination and enforcement measures or allow them to pass as citizens. And some
become undocumented through an unauthorized entry and others by overstay-
ing a visa. Regardless of their race, national origin, class background, mode of en-
try, or educational attainment, they face a uniform set of exclusions and withheld
resources and opportunities that create a socially significant divide. It is not that
they don’t experience other forms of inequality–they do. But even in overlapping
contexts, illegality takes precedence. As Susan Coutin warns,

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Even if this space is in some ways subversive, even if its boundaries are permeable, and
even if it is sometimes irrelevant to the individuals’ daily lives, [it] can be deadly. Le-
gal nonexistence can mean being detained and deported, perhaps to life-threatening
conditions. It can mean working for low wages in a sweatshop or being unemployed. It
can mean the denial of medical care, food, social services, education and public hous-
ing. And it can mean an erasure of rights and personhood . . . .56

S ocial-legal positionality changed for certain undocumented young people in

2012 when President Barack Obama implemented the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program, commonly known as DACA, an administra-
tive policy that offers temporary protection from deportation and work authori-
zation to certain eligible young people.57 While not a legal pathway to citizenship,
this change offered an estimated 1.9 million eligible young people the potential to
transform their developmental pathways and reduce the legal barriers to broader
participation in U.S. society and, at least partially, delay the transition to illegality.
In addition to DACA’s provisions, many states have passed other legislation, help-
ing DACA beneficiaries access essential benefits like driver’s licenses and Med-
icaid. By 2018, more than 814,000 young people had been granted DACA status.

Over the course of the program’s eight years, DACA has allowed its beneficia-
ries better opportunities to support themselves and their families. DACA has en-
abled young people to access better-paying jobs, health care, driver’s licenses, and
the means of establishing credit through bank accounts and credit cards.58 Many
have improved their living arrangements, purchased new cars, and enrolled their
children in day-care programs. They have also experienced enhanced feelings of
security, belonging, and overall well-being.59 As a result, these new opportunities
have provided beneficiaries increased social mobility.60

DACA has also helped beneficiaries launch careers by enrolling in new edu-
cation and workforce training programs and gaining valuable on-the-job train-
ing.61 In many states, DACA has provided beneficiaries with educational oppor-
tunities and resources otherwise unavailable to undocumented immigrants not
covered by DACA, such as access to in-state tuition and professional licenses for
specialized vocations.62 As a result, these developments have created a new divide
between DACA beneficiaries and their undocumented counterparts and family
members who do not possess DACA status.

But has it allowed young people to bridge the divide with their American-born
and citizen counterparts? As a semilegal status, DACA has limited inclusionary
power. Due to DACA’s temporary and partial nature, it ultimately falls short in
endowing its beneficiaries with durable forms of membership and any long-term
certainty about their place in U.S. society. As an administrative policy, DACA does
not provide a pathway to citizenship, it does not override exclusions from federal
financial aid, it places limits on occupations its beneficiaries can pursue, and it still

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150 (2) Spring 2021Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

leaves open the door to deportation. And DACA beneficiaries remain connected
to family members, romantic partners, and friends who do not qualify for DACA.
Their fates are ultimately impacted by their loved ones’ vulnerability.63 Taken to-
gether, these limitations underscore a persistent divide between DACA beneficia-
ries and their documented peers.

The evidence from DACA, a “liminally legal status” that does not endow full and
permanent rights, signals trouble ahead in the twenty-first century. While there is
general consensus regarding the “bright boundaries” of unauthorized status, there
is recognition that growing numbers of migrants around the globe possess statuses
beyond the dichotomous categories of citizenship.64 Increasing numbers of mi-
grants occupy statuses that are temporary, uncertain, and nonlinear.65 Sociologist
Cecilia Menjívar has observed that those possessing liminal statuses often live in
a state of legal limbo that can persist indefinitely, sometimes never leading to cit-
izenship or other forms of formal integration.66 While they enjoy certain rights
and privileges, their “precarious” status places limits on a range of activities. For
example, precarious immigration statuses are often accompanied by precarious
access to public services. In addition, while these liminally legal immigrants are
sometimes able to renew their status and the benefits that come with them, a pe-
riod of nonrenewal (due to lengthy processing times or denial) can push them out
of status, even if temporarily, resulting in potential job loss, bureaucratic hurdles,
and stress. They may also be subject to deportation for relatively minor offenses,
due to legislation in recent years that has expanded the grounds for deportation.

Ultimately, the durability of statuses like DACA is called into question precisely
because the tension between access and exclusion, between belonging and vulner-
ability, that characterizes their daily experience remains unresolved.67 While the
ability to experience temporary and partial integration into the U.S. economy and
society is significant, it cannot fully counter the master status nature of illegality.
In 2017, the Trump administration moved to terminate DACA. Following the
termination, it was promptly challenged in the courts, yet the United States Citi-
zenship and Immigration Services stopped accepting new applications. The U.S.
Supreme Court heard oral arguments on November 12, 2019, and ruled five-to-
four against the Trump administration in June 2020, narrowly avoiding a reversal
of the progress beneficiaries have made over the last eight years. On December 7,
2020, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would accept initial
applications for the first time in three years. Still, this short history exposes the
program’s fragile nature and its limits in providing long-term stability and rights
for its beneficiaries. It also throws into doubt whether liminally legal policies like
DACA can override the master status nature of undocumented status.

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about the authors

Roberto G. Gonzales is Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education and Director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. He is the author
of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (2015) and Undocument-
ed Migration (with Nando Sigona, Martha C. Franco, and Anna Papoutsi, 2019) and
editor of Within and Beyond Citizenship: Borders, Membership and Belonging (with Nando
Sigona, 2017).

Stephen P. Ruszczyk is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Montclair State Uni-
versity. He has written for such journals as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,
American Behavioral Scientist, and Metropolitics.

endnotes

1 Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, “The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation
and Its Variants,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 530 (1)
(1993): 74–96; Herbert J. Gans, “Second-Generation Decline: Scenarios for the Eco-
nomic and Ethnic Futures of the Post-1965 American Immigrants,” Ethnic and Racial
Studies 15 (2) (1992): 173–192; and Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant
America: A Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

2 Douglas S. Massey and Karen A. Pren, “Unintended Consequences of U.S. Immigration
Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America,” Population and Development
Review 38 (1) (2012): 1–29.

3 The median length of residence for undocumented residents is more than fifteen years.
See Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel, and D’Vera Cohn, “5 Facts about Illegal Im-
migration in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2019, https://www.pewresearch
.org/fact-tank/2019/06/12/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/.

4 Ibid.

5 Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh, DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act

Beneficiaries (Washington D.C.: Migration Policy Institute, 2010), 1–24.

6 Min Zhou and Roberto G. Gonzales, “Divergent Destinies: Children of Immigrants
Growing Up in the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology 45 (1) (2019): 383–399.

7 Massey and Pren, “Unintended Consequences of U.S. Immigration Policy.”

8 Richard Alba and Victor Nee, “Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immi-
gration,” International Migration Review 31 (4) (1997): 826–874; Frank D. Bean and Gillian
Stevens, America’s Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity (New York: Russell Sage Foun-
dation, 2003); and Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Im-
migrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

9 Portes and Zhou, “The New Second Generation”; Herbert J. Gans, “Second-Generation
Decline: Scenarios for the Economic and Ethnic Futures of the Post-1965 American
Immigrants,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15 (2) (1992): 173–192; and Portes and Rumbaut,
Immigrant America.

10 Edward E. Telles and Vilma Ortiz, Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation,

and Race (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009).

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150 (2) Spring 2021Roberto G. Gonzales & Stephen P. Ruszczyk

11 Cecilia Menjívar, “The Racialization of ‘Illegality,’” Dædalus 150 (2) (Spring 2021).
12 Doris Meissner, Donald Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti, and Claire Bergeron, Immigration
Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery (Washington, D.C.: Mi-
gration Policy Institute, 2013).

13 Greg Prieto, Immigrants Under Threat: Risk and Resistance in Deportation Nation (New York:
New York University Press, 2018); and Roberto G. Gonzales and Steven Raphael, “Ille-
gality: A Contemporary Portrait of Immigration,” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal
of the Social Sciences 3 (4) (2017): 1–17.

14 Tanya Golash-Boza and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Latino Immigrant Men and the
Deportation Crisis: A Gendered Racial Removal Program,” Latino Studies 11 (3) (2013):
271–292.

15 Ana Gonzalez-Barrera and Jens Manuel Krogstad, U.S. Deportations of Immigrants Reach

Record High in 2013 (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 2014).

16 Joanna Dreby, “The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Fami-

lies,” Journal of Marriage and Family 74 (4) (2012): 829–845.

17 Leisy J. Abrego, Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014); and Jane Lilly López, “‘Impossible Families’:
Mixed-Citizenship Status Couples and the Law,” Law & Policy 37 (1–2) (2015): 93–118.
18 Stephanie R. Potochnick and Krista M. Perreira, “Depression and Anxiety among
First-Generation Immigrant Latino Youth: Key Correlates and Implications for Future
Research,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 198 (7) (2010): 470–477; and Frank
D. Bean, Susan K. Brown, and James D. Bachmeier, Parents Without Papers: The Progress
and Pitfalls of Mexican American Integration (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2015).
19 Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Carola Suárez-Orozco, and Roberto G. Gonzales, “Unauthorized
Status and Youth Development in the United States: Consensus Statement of the Soci-
ety for Research on Adolescence,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 27 (1) (2017): 4–19.
20 Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented Parents and Their Children

(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011).

21 Michael A. Olivas, No Undocumented Child Left Behind: Plyler v. Doe and the Education of Un-

documented Schoolchildren (New York: New York University Press, 2012).

22 Leisy Janet Abrego, “‘I Can’t Go to College Because I Don’t Have Papers’: Incorpora-
tion Patterns of Latino Undocumented Youth,” Latino Studies 4 (3) (2006): 212–231;
and Roberto Gonzales, “Learning to Be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Le-
gal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood,” American Sociological Review 76 (4) (2011):
602–619.

23 Gonzales, “Learning to Be Illegal”; Roberto G. Gonzales, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and
Coming of Age in America (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015); and Roberto G.
Gonzales and Leo R. Chavez, “‘Awakening to a Nightmare’: Abjectivity and Illegality
in the Lives of Undocumented 1.5-Generation Latino Immigrants in the United States,”
Current Anthropology 53 (3) (2012): 255–281.

24 Roberto G. Gonzales, Basia Ellis, Sarah A. Rendón-García, and Kristina Brant, “(Un) Au-
thorized Transitions: Illegality, DACA, and the Life Course,” Research in Human Develop-
ment 15 (3–4) (2018): 345–359; Gonzales, “Learning to Be Illegal”; Gonzales, Lives in Lim-
bo; and Carola Suárez-Orozco, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Robert Teranishi, and Marcelo

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Suárez-Orozco, “Growing Up in the Shadows: The Developmental Implications of Un-
authorized Status,” Harvard Educational Review 81 (3) (2011): 438–473.

25 Roberto Gonzales, “Left Out But Not Shut Down: Political Activism and the Undocu-
mented Student Movement,” Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 3 (2) (2008): 219;
Walter Nicholls, The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Im-
migrant Rights Debate (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2013); and Laura E.
Enriquez, “‘Undocumented and Citizen Students Unite’: Building a Cross-Status Coa-
lition through Shared Ideology,” Social Problems 61 (2) (2014): 155–174.

26 Carola Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, and Irina Todorova, Learning a New
Land: Immigrant Students in American Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2008).

27 Roberto G. Gonzales, “On the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Understanding the Effects of
School Structure and Social Capital in the Educational Pursuits of Undocumented Im-
migrant Students,” Peabody Journal of Education 85 (4) (2010): 469–485; Alejandro Portes
and Patricia Fernández-Kelly, “No Margin for Error: Educational and Occupational
Achievement among Disadvantaged Children of Immigrants,” The ANNALS of the Amer-
ican Academy of Political and Social Science 620 (1) (2008): 12–36; and Robert Courtney
Smith, “Horatio Alger Lives in Brooklyn: Extrafamily Support, Intrafamily Dynamics,
and Socially Neutral Operating Identities in Exceptional Mobility among Children of
Mexican Immigrants,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
620 (1) (2008): 270–290.

28 Veronica Terriquez and Oded Gurantz, “Financial Challenges in Emerging Adult-
hood and Students’ Decisions to Stop Out of College,” Emerging Adulthood 3 (3) (2015):
204–214.

29 Gonzales, Lives in Limbo.
30 Ibid.
31 Roberto G. Gonzales and Edelina M. Burciaga, “Segmented Pathways of Illegality: Re-
conciling the Coexistence of Master and Auxiliary Statuses in the Experiences of
1.5-Generation Undocumented Young Adults,” Ethnicities 18 (2) (2018): 178–191.

32 Tanya Golash-Boza and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Latino Immigrant Men and the
Deportation Crisis: A Gendered Racial Removal Program,” Latino Studies 11 (3) (2013):
271–292.

33 René D. Flores and Ariela Schachter, “Who are the ‘Illegals’? The Social Construction of

Illegality in the United States,” American Sociological Review 83 (5) (2018): 839–868.

34 Kara Cebulko, “Privilege without Papers: Intersecting Inequalities among 1.5-Genera-

tion Brazilians in Massachusetts,” Ethnicities 18 (2) (2018): 225–241.

35 Gonzales, Lives in Limbo, 105. See also Caitlin Patler, “Racialized Illegality: The Conver-
gence of Race and Legal Status among Black, Latino and Asian-American Undocument-
ed Young Adults,” Scholars and Southern Californian Immigrants in Dialogue: New Conversa-
tions in Public Sociology, ed. Victoria Carty, Tekle Woldemikael, and Rafael Luévano (New
York: Lexington Books, 2014), 93–113.

36 Mathew Coleman, “The ‘Local’ Migration State: The Site-Specific Devolution of Immi-

gration Enforcement in the U.S. South,” Law & Policy 34 (2) (2012): 159–190.

37 Gonzales and Burciaga, “Segmented Pathways of Illegality.”

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38 Roberto G. Gonzales and Ariel G. Ruiz, “Dreaming beyond the Fields: Undocumented
Youth, Rural Realities and a Constellation of Disadvantage,” Latino Studies 12 (2) (2014):
194–216.

39 Helen B. Marrow, New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural

American South (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2011).

40 Lisa M. Martinez, “Dreams Deferred: The Impact of Legal Reforms on Undocumented

Latino Youth,” American Behavioral Scientist 58 (14) (2014): 1873–1890.

41 Everett Cherrington Hughes, “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status,” American Journal

of Sociology 50 (5) (1945): 353–359.

42 Richard Alba, “Bright vs. Blurred Boundaries: Second-Generation Assimilation and
Exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (1)
(2005): 20–49.

43 Gonzales and Burciaga, “Segmented Pathways of Illegality.”
44 Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien; Nicholas P. De Genova, “Migrant ‘Illegality’ and De-
portability in Everyday Life,” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002): 419–447; and Su-
san Bibler Coutin, Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).

45 Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008); and Leo R. Chavez, Covering Immigration: Popu-
lar Images and the Politics of the Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
46 Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York:

Simon & Schuster, 2005).
47 Chavez, The Latino Threat.
48 Douglas S. Massey and Magaly Sanchez R., Brokered Boundaries: Immigrant Identity in Anti-

Immigrant Times (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).

49 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).

50 Zulema Valdez and Tanya Golash-Boza, “Master Status or Intersectional Identity?
Undocumented Students’ Sense of Belonging on a College Campus,” Identities 27 (4)
(2020): 1–19; and Laura E. Enriquez, “A ‘Master Status’ or the ‘Final Straw’? Assess-
ing the Role of Immigration Status in Latino Undocumented Youths’ Pathways out of
School,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43 (9) (2017): 1526–1543.

51 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Vi-
olence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43 (6) (1994): 1241–1299; and Pa-
tricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empow-
erment (New York: Routledge, 2000).

52 Valdez and Golash-Boza, “Master Status or Intersectional Identity?”
53 Enriquez, “A ‘Master Status’ or the ‘Final Straw’?”
54 Howard S. Becker, Outsiders (New York: Free Press, 2008), 32–33.
55 Gonzales and Burciaga, “Segmented Pathways of Illegality.”
56 Coutin, Legalizing Moves, 193.

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57 Jeanne Batalova, Sarah Hooker, and Randy Capps, DACA at the Two-Year Mark: A National
and State Profile of Youth Eligible and Applying for Deferred Action (Washington, D.C.: Migra-
tion Policy Institute, 2014).

58 Roberto G. Gonzales, Veronica Terriquez, and Stephen P. Ruszczyk, “Becoming DACA-
mented: Assessing the Short-Term Benefits of Deferred Action for Childhood Arriv-
als (DACA),” American Behavioral Scientist 58 (14) (2014): 1852–1872; and Tom K. Wong,
Greisa Martinez Rosas, Adam Luna, et al., DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains
Continue to Grow (Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, 2017).

59 Caitlin Patler and Whitney Pirtle, “From Undocumented to Lawfully Present: Do Chang-
es to Legal Status Impact Psychological Wellbeing among Latino Immigrant Young
Adults?” Social Science & Medicine 199 (C) (2018): 39–48; Roberto G. Gonzales, Benja-
min Roth, Kristina Brant, et al., DACA at Year Three: Challenges and Opportunities in Access-
ing Higher Education and Employment (Washington, D.C.: American Immigration Council,
2016); and Tom K. Wong and Carolina Valdivia, In Their Own Words: A Nationwide Survey
of Undocumented Millennials (San Diego: University of California, San Diego, Center for
Comparative Immigration Studies, 2014).

60 Wong et al., DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains Continue to Grow.
61 Caitlin Patler, Jorge A. Cabrera, and Dream Team Los Angeles, From Undocumented to
DACAmented: Impacts of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program (Los An-
geles: UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 2015); Gonzales et al.,
DACA at Year Three; and Roberto G. Gonzales, Marco A. Murillo, Cristina Lacomba, et
al., Taking Giant Leaps Forward (Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, 2017).

62 Gonzales et al., DACA at Year Three.
63 Patler and Pirtle, “From Undocumented to Lawfully Present.”
64 Cecilia Menjívar, “Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in
the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 111 (4) (2006): 999–1037; and Agnieszka
Kubal, “Conceptualizing Semi-Legality in Migration Research,” Law & Society Review 47
(3) (2013): 555–587.

65 Roberto G. Gonzales and Nando Sigona, eds., Within and Beyond Citizenship: Borders, Mem-

bership and Belonging (Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2017).

66 Menjívar, “Liminal Legality.”
67 Roberto G. Gonzales, Kristina Brant, and Benjamin Roth, “DACAmented in the Age of
Deportation: Navigating Spaces of Belonging and Vulnerability in Social and Personal
Lives,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43 (1) (2020): 60–79.

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