In the Breach: Citizenship and its Approximations

To analyze the forms of membership that are created in the gap between formal citizenship and social belonging, this paper takes up three examples of citizenship in the breach: (1) the 1980-1992 Salvadoran civil war, in which human rights abuses perpetrated in El Salvador effectively constituted Salvadoran migrants as stateless persons, though technically they held Salvadoran citizenship; (2) informal U.S. membership claims put forward by longtime U.S. residents who were deported to El Salvador; and (3) the legal or documentary problems that emerge when legal permanent residents, some of whom immigrated to the United States from El Salvador during the 1980s, seek to naturalize or petition for undocumented family members. Analyzing these three examples suggests that citizenship and informal membership are defined in relation to each other, and that in moving between official citizenship and its approximations, law itself moves between legal fictions and legal realities. Globalization and the Law: The Next Twenty Years. Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, April 5-6, 201

Legacies and Origins of the 1980s US-Central American Sanctuary Movement

 This article re-examines the US–Central American sanctu­ary movement of the 1980s. Our re-examination is motiv­ated by two factors. First, with the passage of time it is pos­sible to discern the movement’s origins in ways that could not be fully articulated while it was ongoing. We are able to show how certain relationships between the movement’s North and Central American activists were celebrated, while others were obscured due to fear for Salvadoran immigrant activists’ safety and concern about inadver­tently undermining the movement’s legitimacy. Specifically, we draw attention to the movement’s transnational nature, noting that what made it so powerful was its origin as part of a broader effort by Salvadoran revolutionaries to mobil­ize North American society to oppose US support for the Salvadoran government. Ironically, to achieve this objective Salvadoran immigrant activists had to stay quiet, become invisible, and abstain from taking certain leadership roles, while embracing identities that may have implied weak­ness or passivity, such as “refugee” or “victim.” Second, the US–Central American sanctuary movement provides powerful insight into future understandings of sanctuary as a concept and practice. The movement’s legacies extend beyond participants’ stated goals, while the movement’s transnational political and organizational focus differenti­ates it from current sanctuary practices. Thus, re-examin­ing its origins and legacies suggests that apparent similar­ities in the form of sanctuary incidents may hide underlying differences and that current sanctuary practices may also eventually have unanticipated consequences.Cet article examine à nouveau le « sanctuary movement » aux États-Unis et en Amérique centrale durant les années 1980. Deux facteurs expliquent ce réexamen. 1°, avec le passage du temps, il est possible de discerner les origines du mouvement qui ne pouvaient pas être entièrement articulées alors qu’il était en cours. Nous sommes en mesure de montrer comment certaines relations entre activistes nord-américains et leurs contreparties centre-américaines ont été fêtées, tandis que d’autres ont été occultées par crainte pour la sécurité des militants salvadoriens pro immigration et par peur d’accidentellement miner la légitimité du mouvement. Plus précisément, nous attirons l’attention sur la nature transnationale du mouvement, soulignant que ce qui l’a rendu si puissant sont ses origines dans le cadre d’un effort plus large par les révolutionnaires salvadoriens en vue de mobiliser la société nord-américaine en opposition à l’appui des États-Unis pour le pouvoir salvadorien. Ironie du sort, pour atteindre cet objectif les militants salvadoriens ont dû rester muets, devenir invisibles et s’abstenir de prendre certains rôles de leadership, tout en affichant des identités, comme « réfugié » ou « victime », qui pouvaient implicitement signifier la faiblesse ou la passivité. 2°, le « sanctuary movement » des États-Unis et de l’Amérique centrale donne un puissant aperçu de notre compréhension future de la notion de sanctuaire en tant que concept et pratique. Le legs du mouvement va au-delà des objectifs déclarés des participants, alors que son accent transnational, politique et organisationnel le différencie des pratiques actuelles. Ainsi, un réexamen des origines du mouvementet de son héritage suggère que des similitudes apparentes sous la forme de cas de sanctuaire peuvent masquer des différences sous-jacentes et que les pratiques actuelles du sanctuaire peuvent aussi avoir des conséquences éventuelles imprévues

Navigating Liminal Legalities Along Pathways To Citizenship: Immigrant Vulnerability and the Role of Mediating Institutions

In this report, we summarize the findings of research funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and conducted in Southern California over the course of eighteen months between January 2014 and September 2015. This time period coincided with the announcement of and subsequent legal challenges to the DACA and DAPA program – a period characterized by extreme legal uncertainty over the availability and scope of these “Executive Relief” programs. Drawing from 16 in-depth interviews with staff of 10 different immigrant serving organizations and 47 interviews with noncitizens in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, we captured the on-the-ground challenges facing noncitizens and community based organizations as the scope and availability of Executive Relief was debated. In our research, we focused on the hardships and barriers to incorporation imposed by liminal legal status, the challenges faced by organizations mediating between their constituents and the state in periods of legal uncertainty, and the ways that uncertainty has reshaped the social, political and legal environment in which immigrant-serving organizations and their constituents interact. Our research is ongoing, but here we offer our preliminary findings for some of our research questions