“Once You Arrive, Se Te Sala Todo” (Everything is Salted): Latina Migrants' Search for “Dignity and a Right to Life” in Canada

ABSTRACT

This study explores how Latina women fleeing gender-related violence seek protection for themselves and their children under Canada's humanitarian laws. Rising emphasis on border control contributes to a growing number of forced migrants whose transnational movement is constructed as “illegal.” Migrants who fall outside legal migration channels are exposed to precarious conditions that can lead to further violence. Through interpretive analysis of in-depth interviews with women from Mexico and Central America, we explore how immigration policies produce gendered forms of “illegality.” We also highlight how women's migration in search for rights and protection represents a form of substantive citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration policy
• forced migration
• substantive citizenship
• asylum seekers
• non-status immigrants

Acknowledgments

This research was carried out by the Migrant Mothers Project, which is led by Rupaleem Bhuyan at the University of Toronto in partnership with an active network of community-based service providers, legal clinics, and immigrant/refugee community members in Toronto. Bethany J. Osborne served as the project coordinator; Janet Flor Juanico Cruz served as an outreach coordinator and interviewer. We thank the women who generously shared their stories of migration and survival along with our dedicated team of researchers including Mercedes Umaña, from Women's Health in Women's Hands Community Health Centre; Margarita Pintín-Pérez; Flavia Genovese; Fernanda Villanueva; Adriana Vargas; and Rachel Mehl; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, CERIS; the Ontario Metropolis Centre; and a Connaught New Researcher Award at the University of Toronto, which supported this research. The University of Toronto, Office of Research Ethics approved the Research Ethics (i.e., Human Subjects) protocols. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the International Conference on Law and Society, held in Honolulu, Hawai'i, (June 2012) and the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration held in Kolkata, India (January 2013).

Notes

¹ Participant did not provide exact age. The range is provided when the participants' life story indicates approximate age.

² NR = not reported. This indicates that the information was not provided.

³ H&C = Humanitarian & Compassionate application. This is an application for permanent residence in Canada based on humanitarian grounds that are separate from refugee determination.

1. The Designated Countries of Origin list of “safe countries” was established by Citizenship and Immigration Canada in 2012. This list designates some countries as having laws and/or a justice system that protects its citizens. This list is used as a tool to reject refugee claims from these countries. More information about this policy can be found at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/reform-safe.asp.

2. We interviewed a total of 25 women for this study, however two of these women, who originated from Peru, requested to participate in our interviews. Because these two women were outside of our original recruitment protocol and had markedly different stories of migration and violence, we elected to omit their narratives from the analysis presented in this article.

3. At the time of our interviews, in 2011, refugee claimants were permitted to simultaneously submit applications for permanent residence on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds. This is a separate path to permanent residence from the UN convention refugee review process.