From Refugees to Immigrants: The Legalization Strategies of Salvadoran Immigrants and Activists

Abstract

The legalization strategies pursued by Salvadoran immigrants and activists from the 1980s to the present demonstrate that migrants’ and advocates’ responses to policy changes reinterpret law in ways that affect future policy. Law is critical to immigrants’ strategies in that legal status is increasingly a prerequisite for rights and services and that immigration law is embedded in other institutions and relationships. Immigration law is defined, however, not only when it is first formulated but also as it is implemented, enabling the immigrants who are defined according to legal categories to shape the definitions that categorization produces. Immigrants and activists also take formal legal and political actions, such as lobbying Congress and filing class action suits. Through such formal and informal policy negotiations, immigrants seek to shape their own and their nations’ futures.

From political opportunities to niche-openings: the dilemmas of mobilizing for immigrant rights in inhospitable environments

“…It suggests that while general closure limits the opportunities for marginalized populations like undocumented immigrants, inhospitable conditions do not shut down all possible avenues for political mobilization. Because liberaldemocratic political systems are complex and filled with many internal contradictions, even the most hostile contexts produce countless cracks and fissures that can serve as narrow niche-openings for some immigrants (Joppke 1999;Coutin 1998Coutin , 2003van der Leun 2003;Menjívar 2006;Chauvin and Garcés-Mascarenas 2012). Because these openings are narrow, not all immigrants possess the right set of attributes (cultural, economic, legal, etc.…”

“…However, continued high-profile mobilizations of undocumented immigrants in the United States and Europe since the 1990s problematize this assumption (Siméant 1998;Coutin 1998Coutin , 2003Iskander 2007;Cordero-Guzmán et al 2008;Benjamin-Alvarado et al 2009;Anderson 2010;Voss and Bloemraad 2011;Nicholls 2013). Rather than turn away from the public sphere, different groups have brought their cases directly into the public, engaged in high-risk public protests and civil disobedience, and developed compelling and resonant rights claims.…”

“…In their efforts to roll back the rights of immigrants, legal openings emerge for cases protected by constitutions, laws, courts, and international treaties (i.e., families, children, asylum seekers, etc.) (van der Leun 2003;Coutin 1998Coutin , 2003Bosniak 2006;Menjívar 2006). Second, political scientists have also shown that in spite of high levels of antagonism towards immigrants, politicians face strong political pressures not to pursue total border closure (Freeman 1995;Money 1999;Schain 1999).…”

“…They are encouraged to craft a representation that stresses their strategic attributes. For example, if activists perceive a niche-opening on the basis of refugee status, they construct a representation of the group narrowly focused on this one aspect of its complex social and cultural background (Coutin 1998(Coutin , 2003. The public narratives of the refugees are structured by messages, talking points, and emotionally compelling stories that stress the most strategic attributes of the group, silencing those other attributes that may distort their central message.…”

On silences: Salvadoran refugees then and now

“…3 On the contrary, however, the general US policy response toward Salvadorans-and Guatemalans-was to obstruct them. Because of the US government's financial and political support of the war, it refused to recognize Salvadorans in the 1980s and 1990s as refugees (Coutin 1998). In a sense, the US government opted for silence regarding its extensive role in perpetrating human rights abuses.…”