Documented, Undocumented, and Liminally Legal: Legal Status During the Transition to Adulthood for 1.5-Generation Brazilian Immigrants

Abstract

This article deconstructs the “illegal–legal” binary that characterizes much immigration scholarship. Using in-depth interviews with 42 1.5-generation Brazilian immigrants in young adulthood, I find that respondents discuss a distinct hierarchy with four categories of legal membership—undocumented, liminal legality, lawful permanent resident (LPR), and citizen—that affect their daily lives and incorporation. Liminally legal and LPR statuses in particular challenge this illegal–legal dichotomy. Liminal legality is an “in-between” status in which immigrants possess social security numbers and work permits but have no guarantee of eventual citizenship. Without opportunities to regularize their status, both undocumented and liminally legal young adults face increased vulnerabilities to poverty and social exclusion. Liminally legal youth, however, are in better positions than their undocumented peers during early adulthood because of state-delimited rights associated with their legal status.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Cedric DeLeon, Eric Hirsch, Julia Jordan-Zachary, Emily Heaphy, Leah VanWey, Brian Powell, Eliza Pavalko, and Donna Eder for all their feedback and support. Special thanks to Leisy Abrego, Niki Hotchkiss, Cecilia Menjívar, Helen Marrow, Mary Waters, and all the members of Harvard's Migration and Immigrant Incorporation December 2007 workshop for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (4832912) and the Department of Sociology at Indiana University.

NOTES

Notes

¹ DACA is a formal decision by the Obama administration not to deport individuals who are deemed a low priority for immigration enforcement. Eligibility criteria include the immigrant is under age 31; came to the United States before age 16; has continuously resided in the United States for at least five years as of June 15, 2012; is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has obtained a general education certificate, or has been honorably discharged from the Armed Forces; and has not been convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor, or multiple misdemeanor offenses, and does not “otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.”

² First generation refers to immigrants who migrated as adults, while second generation refers to their U.S.-born children. One-and-a-half generation—coined by Ruben Rumbaut (1991)—is used to capture the group who was born abroad but migrated as children. Not all members of the 1.5 generation are unauthorized. Moreover, not all members of the 1.5 generation would be eligible for the DREAM Act.

³ I use “fully documented” and “fully undocumented” to highlight the ambiguity of liminal legality. Those who are “fully documented” have green cards (or are U.S. citizens), while those who are “fully undocumented” lack any paperwork granting them the right to legally work or reside in the United States.

⁴ DACA does not confer access to in-state tuition as states decide eligibility requirements. At the time of writing, laws in Texas, California, Utah, New York, Washington, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, and Colorado allow unauthorized youth who meet certain eligibility requirements to qualify for in-state tuition. In September 2011, the Rhode Island Board of Governors unanimously passed a policy allowing unauthorized youth to pay in-state tuition. In most of these states, eligibility is dependent upon (1) attending a school for a certain number of years in the state, (2) graduating from a high school in the state, and (3) signing an affidavit that they have applied or will apply to adjust their legal status when eligible (see Joaquin [2012] for further details). Meanwhile, two states—South Carolina and Alabama—explicitly bar undocumented immigrants from enrolling at public institutions. In Massachusetts in late 2012, Governor Deval Patrick announced that DACA beneficiaries will be granted in-state tuition in Massachusetts, provided they meet other eligibility requirements.

⁵ According to segmented assimilation framework, factors in the contexts of exit and reception interact to affect the specific incorporation pathway of immigrants.

⁶ The 1982 Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Plyer v. Doe granted all children residing in the United States, regardless of immigration status, the right to public school education from grades K–12, but the courts have never ruled on higher education. No current federal law bars or guarantees higher education, leaving state and private colleges to decide if and how to accept undocumented youth. States can also decide whether to make state financial aid available. At the time of writing, three states—New Mexico, Texas, and California—grant some access to state aid. Meanwhile, Illinois has created a private scholarship for undocumented youth.

⁷ Salvadorans, but not Guatemalans, were granted TPS (see Menjívar [2006] for discussion on the legal dispensations that led to liminal legality for Guatemalans).

⁸ The National Immigration Law Center has collected information on required documents needed for drivers' licenses in all 50 states. In general, in almost every state, social security numbers and work authorizations allow persons to access drivers' licenses. Since DACA was passed, however, Arizona and Michigan have said that they will deny DACA beneficiaries drivers' licenses. Meanwhile, two states—Washington and New Mexico—allow immigrants, regardless of legal status, to obtain drivers' licenses; Utah allows immigrants, regardless of legal status, to obtain a driving certificate (National Immigration Law Center 2012).

⁹ I define 1.5 generation as children of immigrants who arrived before age 15 and have completed at least four years of American high school education.

¹⁰ All interviews were conducted in English. There were some expressions, however, which could not be adequately conveyed in English. For example, saudades conveys an intense longing for one's family and/or homeland for which no English equivalent exists.

¹ The status of each respondent refers to his or her legal status at the time of the interview.

¹² Table 1 is not exhaustive. It does not report access to health care or other public benefits because the Brazilian young adults in this study did not discuss these as salient issues in their lives. The Massachusetts Health Care Safety Net (passed in 2006) provides health care for persons under age 19, pregnant women, and emergency visits regardless of legal status.

¹³ The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 allowed states to limit public assistance to LPRs, while the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act barred legal immigrants from receiving food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, and, for five years after receiving their green card, means-tested social programs. The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act narrowed the grounds for asylum and limited the possibility for judicial review for deportation cases. It also provided the federal government with the power to deport any alien who had ever crossed the border without authorization or committed a felony.

¹⁴ While a full discussion of race/ethnic identities of Brazilian youth is beyond the scope of this article, it is important to note that Brazilians' racial and ethnic identifications are nuanced (see Marrow [2003] and McDonnell and de Lourenço 2009 for studies examining racial and ethnic identification of Brazilians). Margolis (2007) finds that some invoke a Brazilian national identity as their “race” or “ethnicity.” This was true for Gabriella, who invoked a Brazilian national identity in response to questions about how she ethnically and racially identifies herself. “For me, I'm Brazilian. That's my race.” Although she would have been white in Brazil, Gabriella, who perceives her “race” to be “Brazilian,” thus included herself as part of the nonwhite minority in the United States.

¹⁵ While Levitt (2007) describes Brazilians as having fluid lives maintaining dynamic transnational lives across borders, unauthorized respondents in this study were not active transnational social actors. They left Brazil at young ages, and their legal status has prohibited them from returning.