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U.S. Expansionism, Mexican Undocumented Migration, and American Obligations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2011

Rafael Alarcón
Rafael Alarcón
Affiliation:
University of Valencia
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Abstract

In his compelling piece, “Living in a Promiseland? Mexican Immigration and American Obligations,” Rogers Smith argues that the greater the degree to which the U.S. has coercively constituted the identities of non-citizens in ways that have made having certain relationships to America fundamental to their capacities to lead free and meaningful lives, the greater the obligations the U.S. has to facilitate those relationships. Over the last hundred years, many rural communities in Mexico have been constituted more by U.S. immigration policy and the labor demands of U.S. employers than by similar policies and economic factors in Mexico. According to Smith, this means that Mexicans may be owed “special access” to American residency and citizenship, ahead of the residents of countries less affected by U.S. policies, and in ways that should justify leniency toward undocumented Mexican immigrants.

Type
Reflections Symposium
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 563 - 565
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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