Temporary Protection, Enduring Contradiction: The Contested and Contradictory Meanings of Temporary Immigration Status

Hallett, Miranda Cady

doi:10.1111/lsi.12081

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Scholars have been noticing how contemporary immigration control tends to expand not with brute force but rather through a process of “negotiation” (Longazel and van der Woude ). In her study of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) the U.S. Government grants to immigrants from El Salvador, for example, Miranda Hallett (, 633) describes how while state discourse framed the TPS program as a gift , the policy – “tainted by the self‐interest of the giver” – turned out to be more akin to grift . TPS, she notes, creates a system of surveillance, enhances Salvadoran exploitability, and reinforces U.S. superiority by “[producing] a sense of obligation on the part of recipients without substantively improving their situation” (633–634).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relieving the Tension: Lay Immigration Lawyering and the Management of Legal Violence

Longazel¹

2018

Law Soc Rev

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The Recognition and Accreditation Program (R&A Program) authorizes certain non‐lawyers, or “Accredited Representatives” (ARs), to practice immigration law out of non‐profit or faith‐based organizations. Drawing on interviews with practicing ARs, I describe how, at the center of this group's approach to legal practice, is a firm commitment to their clients. ARs report being particularly attuned – thanks to their social position and life experiences – to the hardships many of their clients confront at the hands of a punitive U.S. immigration system. I find this translates, on one hand, into an anti‐formalist legal practice: ARs describe performing emotional labor in order to take the edge off of formalism's rigidity for their clients. Yet at other times, cognizant of the high costs associated with a legal error, ARs describe being much more formalistic, prioritizing legal tedium. The picture becomes more complex when considered in the context of devolution and immigration governance, where it seems the emotional and bureaucratic work ARs do to protect their clients may also be providing ancillary benefits to the state. I conclude by reflecting on the implications this research has for scholarship on the legal profession, for research on “access to justice,” and for understandings of immigration governance.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relieving the Tension: Lay Immigration Lawyering and the Management of Legal Violence

Longazel¹

2018

Law Soc Rev

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“…A lawful permanent resident may likewise generally feel stable in the country but fear their own deportation when seeing media reports of changes to regulations governing legal status (e.g., Hagan et al ; Watson ). In this way, legalization and legal status may be rife with uncertainty (Luhmann : 19ff) for some noncitizens hoping to avoid deportation (Gomberg‐Muñoz ; Hallett ; Jacobs ). If such perceptions spread, immigrants may seek to minimize system legibility by forgoing opportunities to legalize, impacting their US‐citizen children in the form of restricted economic and social well‐being (Bean et al ).…”

Section: The Us Immigration Regime and The Threat Of Deportationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Radar: System Embeddedness and Latin American Immigrants' Perceived Risk of Deportation

Asad¹

2020

Law Soc Rev

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Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 50 Latin American immigrants in Dallas, Texas, this article uncovers systematic distinctions in how immigrants holding different legal statuses perceive the threat of deportation. Undocumented immigrants recognize the precarity of their legal status, but they sometimes feel that their existence off the radar of the US immigration regime promotes their long‐term presence in the country. Meanwhile, documented immigrants perceive stability in their legal status, but they sometimes view their existence on the radar of the US immigration regime as disadvantageous to their long‐term presence in the country. The article offers the concept of system embeddedness—individuals' perceived legibility to institutions that maintain formal records—as a mechanism through which perceived visibility to the US immigration regime entails feelings of risk, and perceived invisibility feelings of safety. In this way, the punitive character of the US immigration regime can overwhelm its integrative functions, chilling immigrants out of opportunities for material and social well‐being through legalization and legal status. More broadly, system embeddedness illuminates how perceived visibility to a record‐keeping body that combines punitive and integrative goals represents a mechanism of legal stratification for subordinated populations—even absent prior punitive experiences with other social control institutions that might otherwise be thought to trigger their system avoidance.

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“…Temporary legal statuses create lives that are “in limbo” (Mountz et al. ; Abrego and Lakhani ; Hallett ), placing people along the borders of legality (Menjívar ), exposing them to material and emotional deprivation (Abrego ), and contributing to abjection as individuals cope with the contradictions of living without permanent legal status (Gonzales and Chavez ). Indeed, “endless waiting” can seem to suspend time, creating a feeling of paralysis (Andersson ), or even become “a time of non‐existence” (Hasselberg , 103).…”

Section: Sovereign Intimacies: Juana María and Dianamentioning

confidence: 99%

Sovereign intimacies: The lives of documents within US state‐noncitizen relationships

Abarca

Coutin

2018

American Ethnologist

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In the United States, the doctrine of plenary power grants the federal government considerable discretion in formulating US immigration policies. With only limited court review, the executive and legislative branches of government can create or abrogate immigration policies quite suddenly. This produces extreme uncertainty in the lives of noncitizens, who must collect check stubs, bills, medical records, and other documents in hopes of eventually being able to submit them as part of a legalization case. Such record‐keeping practices enable noncitizens to speak back to the state in its own language, thus exploiting opportunities to challenge illegalization. The discretion that has been deemed key to US sovereignty therefore makes not only immigrants but also the state vulnerable as it endows documents with transformative potential. [immigration, sovereignty, documents, vulnerability, intimacy, law, United States]

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Temporary Protection, Enduring Contradiction: The Contested and Contradictory Meanings of Temporary Immigration Status

Cited by 25 publications

References 22 publications

Relieving the Tension: Lay Immigration Lawyering and the Management of Legal Violence

Relieving the Tension: Lay Immigration Lawyering and the Management of Legal Violence

On the Radar: System Embeddedness and Latin American Immigrants' Perceived Risk of Deportation

Sovereign intimacies: The lives of documents within US state‐noncitizen relationships

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