2.1 Crimmigration and the Widening Deportation Dragnet

Before 1986, the primary distinction governing immigrants' societal membership separated “illegal” from “legal” categories of immigrants (see Reference ChávezChávez 2012 [1992]). The former included undocumented immigrants, who either entered the country undocumented or who entered documented but fell out of status. The latter comprised a diverse set of documented immigrants, including temporary visa holders, lawful permanent residents, and naturalized citizens. Deportations occurred, but they largely impacted a transient population of undocumented immigrants from Mexico in Arizona, California, and Texas (Reference Donato, Durand and MasseyDonato et al. 1992; Reference EspenshadeEspenshade 1990; Reference Espenshade1995; Reference Massey, Durand and PrenMassey et al. 2016).

Deportation has expanded since the mid-1980s. Figure 1 charts the proliferation of deportations as a primary tool for immigration enforcement since 1892. About 79 percent of the 7.4 million removals logged between 1892 and 2015 have occurred since 1986,Footnote ² under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. This proliferation, which has disproportionately impacted male undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America (Reference Golash-Boza and Hondagneu-SoteloGolash-Boza and Hondagneu-Sotelo 2013), in part reflects growth in the total number of immigrants living in the United States today relative to the close of the nineteenth century. But this recent proliferation is also tied to federal policies that have imported tools from criminal law into immigration law (see Reference StumpfStumpf 2006). These policies have made it so that undocumented status alone is no longer the clear marker of legal stratification among immigrants.Footnote ³

Figure 1. Removals of Noncitizens from the United States, 1960–2015. Source: Department of Homeland Security. 2016. “Table 39: Aliens Removed or Returned: Fiscal Years 1892 to 2015.”

Beginning in the 1980s, the US federal government made undocumented immigration a riskier endeavor. Among other measures, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act increased funding for Mexico-US border security. Subsequent laws funded the hiring of 10,000 Border Patrol officers and the purchase of military equipment for use at the southern border. Rather than dissuade undocumented immigrants from moving to the country, these policies discouraged them from leaving (Reference Massey, Durand and PrenMassey et al. 2016). This change also had consequences for documented immigrants. In one survey of Mexican migrants, 46 percent of households with at least one documented member who settled in the United States also had an undocumented member (Reference Massey, Durand and MaloneMassey et al. 2002). As Reference Massey, Durand and PrenMassey et al. (2016: 1558) summarize, border securitization transformed “what had been a circular flow of male workers going to three states into a settled population of [mixed-status] families living in 50 states.” By 2015, two-thirds of adult undocumented immigrants had lived in the country longer than 10 years (Reference Krogstad, Passel and CohnKrogstad et al. 2019).

During the same time period, the federal government weakened protections afforded to documented immigrants. Immigrants able to naturalize to become US citizens remained entitled to the same rights and privileges as US-born citizens,Footnote ⁴ but this was not true for multiple categories of documented immigrants with increasingly temporary legal statuses (e.g., temporary workers or beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status) (Reference Massey and BartleyMassey and Bartley 2005; National Academies of Sciences 2015). Documented immigrants also shared undocumented immigrants' vulnerability to deportation.Footnote ⁵ This shared vulnerability compounded throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with policy changes making it easier to fall out of a legal status—through requiring more frequent renewals, expensive legal fees, and confusing rules governing specific statuses—than to fall into one (see Reference MenjívarMenjívar 2006: p. 1000 for a detailed example). The result is a widening gulf in the rights and privileges afforded to citizens relative to noncitizens (Reference JosephJoseph 2018), and a convergence in the restrictions and penalties imposed on documented and undocumented immigrants (Reference AsadAsad 2017).

The compounded vulnerabilities that documented and undocumented immigrants shared coincided with expanded federal and subnational efforts to surveil, detain, and deport these individuals (for a full review, see Reference ArmentaArmenta 2017). Although three-quarters of immigrants reside in the United States with authorization, a majority of Americans is unaware of this reality (Reference Doherty, Kiley and JohnsonDoherty et al. 2018; Reference Flores and SchachterFlores and Schachter 2018). A Latino threat narrative promulgated by self-interested politicians, immigration officials, and media elites shaped public opinion toward support of greater regulation of immigrants in their local communities (Reference Massey, Durand and PrenMassey et al. 2016; Reference PickettPickett 2016). Through a number of policies and programs, such as 287(g) Memoranda of Agreement, Secure Communities, and the Priority Enforcement Program, federal and state and local law enforcement began cooperating to detain and deport noncitizens (see Reference ArmentaArmenta 2017; Reference Asad and EvaAsad and Rosen 2019).Footnote ⁶ These programs allow for greater data sharing across federal and subnational law enforcement, laying a foundation for the apprehension and deportation of immigrants throughout the country (Reference ColemanColeman 2007; Reference JainJain 2019; Reference MoinesterMoinester 2018).

Expanded deportability overlapped with new limits on judicial review and noncitizens' due process rights (see Reference AsadAsad 2019, Reference RyoRyo 2018 for a review). The 1988 Immigration and Naturalization Act required the deportation of any noncitizen convicted of an “aggravated felony”—here, murder and drug or firearms trafficking (National Academies of Sciences 2015: 72). Another change in 1990 eliminated the long-standing authority of criminal judges to advise against the deportation of a noncitizen convicted of a crime (Fine 1997). In 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act expanded the aggravated felony category to include “any felony or misdemeanor [in criminal law] where the person is sentenced to at least one year in prison, regardless of whether the sentence is served or suspended” (Reference Golash-Boza, Menjívar and KanstroomGolash-Boza 2013: 206). Noncitizens ordered deported following an aggravated felony conviction face severe obstacles to societal inclusion, including bars to reentry and criminal penalties should they reenter the country prior to the expiration of their reentry bar.

2.2 System Avoidance in an Era of Mass Deportability

A burgeoning literature calls attention to how this widening deportation dragnet affects the everyday lives of “illegal” and “legal” noncitizens alike. One line of research examines noncitizens' fears of legibility to the punitive arm of the US immigration regime that processes deportations. This research tends to focus on undocumented immigrants, given their disproportionate vulnerability. Scholars have studied how deportation or its threat alter immigrants' sense of stability. Reference Golash-BozaGolash-Boza (2015: 4–5) draws on the accounts of deportees in their home countries to show the substantial fear and insecurity the undocumented experience in the United States—fears that become compounded after deportation (see also Reference KanstroomKanstroom 2012). Even absent direct experience, deportability generates fear that regulates noncitizens (Reference De GenovaDe Genova 2002). Reference Coleman and KocherColeman and Kocher (2011: 236) suggest the “incapacitating effects” of fear, or undocumented immigrants' “juridical and social deportation without territorial expulsion.” In other words, the enactment of punitive policies can bring about undocumented immigrants' “progressive exclusion…from ‘normal’ spaces and societal institutions” (Reference Menjívar and AbregoMenjívar and Abrego 2012: 1391). This exclusion has intergenerational consequences, limiting the material and social well-being of all children—including US citizens—born to undocumented parents (Reference Bean, Brown and BachmeierBean et al. 2015).

Other research focuses on how noncitizens perceive their relationship with the US immigration regime's bureaucratic arm, which manages legalization and legal status. Inclusion in the bureaucratic arm can develop noncitizens' sense of stability (e.g., Reference HaganHagan 1994). Through their ongoing interactions with institutions, actors, or activities related to immigration law, legalizing noncitizens learn to craft applications that demonstrate they are “deserving” of a place in US society (see, e.g., Reference CoutinCoutin 2003). Reference Menjívar and LakhaniMenjívar and Lakhani (2016) reveal that noncitizens can also transform their lives in ways that endure beyond legalization, “not out of fear of deportation per se…but in hopes of inclusion, of being considered as deserving of membership and accepted as legitimate members of society” (p. 1823). The undocumented are not expected to experience these transformations given their limited recourse to legal status (see Reference AbregoAbrego 2011, c.f. Reference AndrewsAndrews 2018, Reference GarcíaGarcía 2019). When a rare legalization opportunity manifests, researchers often conclude that “legal immigration status” helps noncitizens and their families overcome societal exclusion (e.g., Reference GonzalesGonzales 2015: 15, 180). Yet, at least ten percent of all deportations between 1997 and 2007 were of lawful permanent residents (Human Rights Watch 2009).

Both strands of research presuppose undocumented and documented immigrants' prior involvement with the US immigration regime to make claims about whether and how deportation fears manifest in everyday life. According to this research, the undocumented fear deportation by virtue of their precarious status, but the documented need not because of their relatively-stable status. This reasoning is consonant with studies of system avoidance, which investigate how criminal-justice involvement impacts individuals' relationships with other record-keeping institutions such as schools and hospitals (Reference BrayneBrayne 2014; Reference GoffmanGoffman 2009; Reference Haskins and JacobsenHaskins and Jacobsen 2017) in ways that limit their families' involvement in these institutions as well (Reference FongFong 2019; Reference Haskins and JacobsenHaskins and Jacobsen 2017; Reference LagesonLageson 2016). Simply stated, people who have come in contact with the criminal-justice system are more likely to avoid other record-keeping systems. Scholars have suggested that system avoidance may also operate among noncitizens—namely, the undocumented. Reference GoffmanAs Goffman (2009: 336) concludes in her study of an over-policed, majority-black neighborhood in Philadelphia: “[W]e might compare ghetto residents to other…people who qualify for some sanction and who are trying to avoid it: [such as] undocumented immigrants who are at risk of being deported.” Reference BrayneBrayne (2014: 387), in her analysis of two national datasets with information on individuals' criminal-justice contacts but without information on legal status, extrapolates that “undocumented immigrants…[may also be] likely to engage in institutional evasion.” In the case of undocumented immigrants, system avoidance theory predicts that an initial contact with the punitive arm of the US immigration regime begets fear and ultimately triggers these individuals' future avoidance of other record-keeping systems. In the case of documented immigrants, the theory tacitly suggests that these individuals' bureaucratic involvement should obviate any possibility of institutional evasion emanating from the fear of deportation.

The preceding review points to limitations of theoretical frameworks focused on the relationship between a binary outcome of system involvement or noninvolvement and fear. Prior punitive involvement with the criminal-justice system (or the US immigration regime) is a fundamental assumption of the system avoidance theory. Yet, even though more than 5 million deportations occurred between 1986 and 2015, the vast majority of noncitizens have never been apprehended or deported. Of these noncitizens, some are undocumented and others are documented. Since most undocumented immigrants have no recourse to legal status, they may never become legible to the bureaucratic arm of the federal immigration regime either. In contrast, even though relatively-few documented immigrants become legible to the regime's punitive arm, all are known to its bureaucratic arm since they have legalized. They may thus be punished should they violate their legal status terms. I offer the concept of system embeddedness to account for the varying perceptions of risks noncitizens may report regarding their perceived legibility to the US immigration regime—even absent prior punitive experiences with other social control institutions that might otherwise be thought to trigger their system avoidance.

2.3 System Embeddedness: The Risk of Perceived Legibility to the US Immigration Regime

System embeddedness—perceived legibility to a formal, record-keeping institution—is a mechanism through which visibility to the US immigration regime can come to entail risk, and invisibility safety. I take risk to mean how a system—in this case, the US immigration regime—represents the cause of possible damage—in this case, deportation—for individuals navigating uncertainty (Reference Japp and KuscheJapp and Kusche 2008: 88). Legal status is a “master status” (Reference GonzalesGonzales 2015: 15, but see Reference EnriquezEnriquez 2017), limiting the rights and privileges available to undocumented relative to documented immigrants. But documentation does not insulate “legal” immigrants from deportation, particularly when perceived legibility to the bureaucratic side of the US immigration regime is thought to make legibility to the regime's punitive side more likely.

Legalizing and legalized noncitizens adjust their behaviors in ways aligned with their beliefs about the law (Reference Abarca and CoutinAbarca and Coutin 2018; Reference Menjívar and LakhaniMenjívar and Lakhani 2016). System embeddedness considers how ostensibly “good” types of regime involvement can represent pathways to surveillance and punishment for subordinated populations. Accordingly, the concept reveals meanings that subordinated populations attach to system legibility and illegibility. Resulting perceptions of risk can vary according to individual, relational, contextual, and media considerations. For example, undocumented immigrants may not fear deportation in daily life but may become fearful when considering whether to take part in a rare legalization opportunity. 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., Reference Hagan, Rodriguez, Capps and KabiriHagan et al. 2003; Reference WatsonWatson 2013). In this way, legalization and legal status may be rife with uncertainty (Reference LuhmannLuhmann 1993: 19ff) for some noncitizens hoping to avoid deportation (Reference Gomberg-MuñozGomberg-Muñoz 2016; Reference HallettHallett 2014; Reference JacobsJacobs 2019). 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 (Reference Bean, Brown and BachmeierBean et al. 2015).

Immigrant bureaucratic incorporation occurs at many levels of government (i.e., federal, state, and local; see Reference MarrowMarrow 2009) and across different systems (e.g., immigration, criminal justice, welfare). This article focuses on three forms of system embeddedness emanating from or relating to the US immigration regime: (1) the risk of perceived legibility to its punitive arm; (2) the risk of perceived legibility to its bureaucratic arm; and (3) the risk of perceived illegibility to both arms. These types are likely not exhaustive and may sometimes work in combination. Nor do they preclude different manifestations of embeddedness in systems beyond the US immigration regime. These forms of embeddedness nonetheless offer a starting point for understanding how immigrants relate multiple forms of perceived legibility to the US immigration regime and deportability.

3.1 Data

Data come from interviews with 50 Latin American immigrants in Dallas County, Texas (hereafter “Dallas”). The interviews are part of a larger study, called How Parents House Kids (HPHK), which is designed to understand why families with young children live where they do (see Reference Harvey, Fong, Edin and DeLucaHarvey et al. 2019). To produce a racially- and socioeconomically-diverse sample, HPHK randomly selected addresses from a stratified random sample of low- (<$25 K), middle- ($25 K to $50 K), and high-income (>$50 K) census block groups with majority-white, −black, and –Hispanic residents. Eligible households contained children between ages three and eight. Members of the research team visited each selected address in each block group to determine households' study eligibility and to recruit the children's primary caregiver(s) for an interview. In total, after eliminating addresses where residents were ineligible for the study (i.e., those that were vacant or did not contain young children), HPHK's response rate for first-round interviews was 80.2 percent.

In recruiting study participants directly from their residential neighborhoods, the HPHK sample helps uncover a broader range of risk perceptions regarding system legibility and deportability than might otherwise be available via other recruitment approaches. A primary goal of interview-based studies is to sample for range (Reference SmallSmall 2009). Research on the US immigration regime often recruits hard-to-find noncitizens from settings such as churches, community-based organizations, detention centers, and legal aid clinics. Though important for studying individuals and families navigating these institutions, this strategy may miss the range of noncitizen types that could provide comparison cases useful for uncovering diversity in noncitizens' risk perceptions. For example, undocumented immigrants with connections to community-based organizations are more likely to apply for and receive a number of “legal” statuses (Reference Gonzales, Terriquez and RuszczykGonzales et al. 2014; Reference Hagan and BakerHagan and Baker 1993; Reference Wong and GarcíaWong and García 2016). In contrast, HPHK recruits households from their residential contexts. The resulting sample, summarized in Table 1, is not representative of Latino families in Dallas County. Nevertheless, of the 36 Latino households HPHK interviewed, 28 contained at least one person born outside the United States to noncitizen parents. I focus in this article on the 27 households containing at least one noncitizen respondent. Among all respondents, 32 are undocumented and 18 are documented.Footnote ⁷ Thirteen report having been detained or deported for immigration-related offenses. This sample thus offers an important window into how a diverse sample of noncitizens relates system legibility and deportability.

Table 1. Demographic and Immigration Characteristics of 50 Undocumented and Documented Noncitizen Respondents in 27 Latin American Households in Dallas County, Texas, 2015

Source: Author's tabulations of 2015 interview data. All values are counts unless otherwise indicated.

The sample contains only families with young children, one segment of the immigrant population for whom the threat of deportation is most unrelenting (Reference Donato and ArmentaDonato and Armenta 2011). Reference FoucaultFoucault (1991 [1978]) notes children are one tool the state uses to discipline parents. That all respondents are parents is an opportunity for a sharper analysis. Parenthood should make all respondents—regardless of legal status—more afraid of deportation, not less. Diversity in risk perceptions would suggest that something beyond parental status underlies these assessments.

I conducted most of the semi-structured interviews with the adult respondents included in this article myself, primarily in Spanish, between 2013 and 2015.Footnote ⁸ Interviews in 2013 asked for respondents to narrate their entire life history, as well as their residential history and experiences with housing units, neighborhoods, and schools. After the discovery that most of the sampled Latino households contained at least one immigrant parent, interviews in 2014 added questions about nativity. Finally, interviews in 2015 inquired about system involvement, avoidance, and deportability. This multi-year interview strategy allows researchers “to ask provocative personal questions” of their respondents, who grow to trust the researcher more over time and are therefore more likely to provide “thoughtful, serious answers” to sensitive topics (Reference BourgoisBourgois 2003: 13; see also Reference DrebyDreby 2010; Reference GonzalesGonzales 2015). Despite potential difficulty in retaining this study population, all 27 households included in this article participated in a baseline interview and at least one follow-up interview; 15 have three interviews. Field notes interviewers wrote at the end of each interview, which averaged 2.5 hours, summarized emergent themes. All interviews were audio recorded and professionally transcribed and translated into English. I checked in with respondents via telephone between waves to keep their contact information current and to express my continued interest in learning from their experiences. Respondents were offered $50 for each interview.

As the US-born son of Middle Eastern immigrants who naturalized long ago, I might be considered what Reference ChávezChávez (2013: 475) calls a “partial insider,” sharing only some identities with respondents. I did not disclose many personal details, but respondents often assumed that I was Latino because of my ethnically-ambiguous physical features and/or Spanish-language fluency. This assumption generally worked to my benefit, with many viewing the study as a chance to teach a US-born Latino about their lives. However, two of the three Latino families that declined to participate reported doing so because they thought I was party to a spate of robberies in their neighborhood that began like our recruitment strategy—with a knock on the door from, allegedly, a Latino-looking man. The third refusal resulted from our team's persistence in scheduling an interview; the respondent simply did not believe her life interesting enough to warrant our desire to interview her. Although these respondents did not mention fear of the US immigration regime, the study still may not capture the most risk-averse individuals.

3.2 Analysis

The findings emerge from an iterative coding process (see Reference Deterding and WatersDeterding and Waters 2018). I read through all interview transcripts and coded for any mention of involvement with the federal immigration regime, such as visa applications or experiences with detention and deportation. After discovering that respondents sometimes reported feeling insulated from the threat of deportation, I developed secondary codes to capture these unexpected perspectives. During this second coding stage, I focused on how respondents interpreted their life situations in relation to the federal immigration regime, as well as their reported responses to it. I then coded instances when respondents' perceptions of the US immigration regime aligned or diverged with the statistical risk of deportation normally associated with the legal status they held. Finally, I examined all codes by respondents' legal status, demographics (e.g., age, sex, and income), and neighborhood characteristics (e.g., racial composition and median household income) in order to assess the contextual conditions linking system involvement, avoidance, and deportability. Here, I report on a limited number of cases that illustrate the themes identified in the full analysis. The findings reveal how perceived legibility to the US immigration regime relates to deportability.

5.1 Punitive Legibility: Detention, Deportation, and the Perceived Risk of Deportation

One way to be embedded in the formal records of the US immigration regime is through its punitive arm. Extant research often begins from this premise, outlining how one's history of detention and deportation contributes to compounded forms of disadvantage primarily for undocumented immigrants and their documented or US-citizen family members (e.g., Reference Theodore and HabansTheodore and Habans 2016). I find a similar dynamic in this study among the 13 respondents—“legal” and “illegal”—with a record of punishment from the US immigration regime: they describe near-universal fears of a future deportation. Their perceived legibility to the US immigration regime's punitive arm is one source of these fears.

Sitting in his living room in 2015, I asked Eduardo whether he feels secure in his presence in the United States as an undocumented immigrant.Footnote ¹² The 41-year-old Mexican national's response underscores the almost-palpable uncertainty that many undocumented immigrants face daily: “No. I know that one day it's going to happen—that I'll be deported. God forbid, right? But it's happened to a lot of people and you never know when it'll be your turn.”

Eduardo's sense of uncertainty arises not only from his undocumented status but also from individual, relational, and contextual considerations. At the individual level are his prior encounters with law enforcement. The first occurred in 1995, when Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers apprehended Eduardo upon entry near McAllen, Texas. Eduardo was jailed for 2 days, photographed, fingerprinted, and deported. He entered the United States the next day. Eduardo did not have another run-in with the law for 12 years, when he says local police pulled him over for rolling through a stop sign. The officer ran Eduardo's license plate through his computer, and in addition to receiving a citation for driving without a license, Eduardo was discovered to have a number of unpaid parking tickets. The officer arrested Eduardo, who spent 1 month in jail before being picked up by ICE officers and deported to Mexico: “The police is connected with La Migra [the U.S. immigration regime]. The news says no, but it's the truth. […] I've had friends who have been caught because they have unpaid tickets. […] I was deported too because I made a mistake [by not paying my tickets] and didn't have any documents.”

Relational and contextual dynamics also underlie Eduardo's fears. He is not legally married to his partner of 3 years, nor is he the biological father or legal guardian to her three US-citizen children. Before the law, Eduardo is thus single and childless. Whereas his partner may be able to legalize when her eldest child turns 21, Eduardo's options are limited. In addition, Eduardo worries about landing in prison should he be captured again; under current statute, it is a federal crime to re-enter the United States unlawfully following an initial removal. He nonetheless explained his belief that, by living cautiously, he can avoid another deportation: “Just go from your home to your job, from your job to your home. […] I haven't seen La Migra around here. And I don't want to see them” (see also Reference AndrewsAndrews 2018; Reference GarcíaGarcía 2019; Reference PrietoPrieto 2018).

Eduardo's fears of deportation extend to other record-keeping institutions that Eduardo believes might put him on the radar of law enforcement. For example, after having already been jailed for unpaid parking tickets, Eduardo fears he will be deported should he ever return to the hospital—where he says he owes over $20,000 for an emergency gallstone surgery. “Thank God I haven't had to go again,” Eduardo told me. “But I think the hospital won't even take me back. Your name comes up in their computers or something.” Although immigration agents generally avoid hospitals so as to not to discourage immigrants from seeking essential health care services, Eduardo's fear of additional punishment outweighs this practical reality.Footnote ¹³

The four documented respondents who report experience with the punitive arm of the federal immigration regime share Eduardo's fears. In 2013, I learned the story of Javier, a 47-year-old lawful permanent resident arrested for driving while intoxicated in 2008. This was Javier's second offense, which makes it a misdemeanor under Texas criminal law.Footnote ¹⁴ He pleaded guilty to the charge in criminal court and was fined, placed on 2 years' probation, and sentenced to mandatory counseling at Alcoholics Anonymous. Javier complied with his sentence, but “ICE arrested him after those two years,” his wife told me ruefully.

Though Javier's crime is only a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail, such a conviction can jeopardize even lawful permanent residents' stability in the United States.Footnote ¹⁵ Driving while intoxicated is not always a deportable offense, but Javier's conviction triggered a review in immigration court about whether he committed a crime of moral turpitude.Footnote ¹⁶ “They investigated everything,” Javier recounted, including if he had been convicted of other crimes and whether his behavior in other spheres of life demonstrated “good moral character” (see Reference AsadAsad 2019; Reference RyoRyo 2019).Footnote ¹⁷

Javier and his family hired an immigration attorney to guide them through immigration court. The attorney told them that Javier would be pardoned only if they could establish his moral worthiness. The eldest of Javier's five children wrote a letter on behalf of his siblings in support of Javier, and the family solicited additional letters from Javier's employer, US-citizen friends, and the children's schoolteachers. Javier says these endorsements reflected well on him in immigration court: “The judge told me, ‘A lot of people wrote to support you. Don't let them down.’” Once pardoned, Javier's attorney helped Javier to naturalize, itself a risky process characterized by thorough criminal background checks that can sometimes lead to an immigrant's unexpected deportation from the country (see Reference AptekarAptekar 2015). Javier's near-deportation lingers in his conscience even now as a naturalized citizen: “Things like this make people react, make them cautious to obey the law.”

5.2 Bureaucratic Legibility: “Legality” and the Perceived Risk of Deportation

Another way to be embedded in the formal records of the US immigration regime is through the bureaucratic arm that manages legalization and legal status. Despite the “legal” statuses that pose less statistical risk of deportation than that faced by undocumented immigrants, the 18 documented respondents in this study sometimes believe themselves especially vulnerable. Even absent prior punitive experiences with other social control institutions such as the criminal-justice system, these respondents identify their legal status as placing them “on the radar” of the US immigration regime. They thus view themselves as subject to ongoing surveillance from an unpredictable US immigration regime, and their deportation as all but inevitable.

Take the case of Marina, a 25-year-old mother of three young daughters. She entered the United States undocumented from Mexico at the age of 15. She remained in that status for several years but applied for and ultimately received a permit from President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012. DACA grants work authorization and temporary reprieve from deportation to eligible undocumented immigrants who plead guilty to having entered the country unlawfully. DACA is associated with improvements in the economic, social, and psychological well-being of recipients relative to nonrecipients (Reference Gonzales, Terriquez and RuszczykGonzales et al. 2014; Reference Patler and PirtlePatler and Pirtle 2018). Yet, prior to Donald Trump's election and the growing uncertainty surrounding his eventual revocation of DACA (Reference Patler, Hamilton, Meagher and SavinarPatler et al. 2019), Marina reported in 2015 having felt more secure without DACA protections than with them. Presciently, she describes an unpredictable political landscape as informing her perceptions: “This is something temporary. You never know, they may take it back. Then you'll go back to being just like the other millions of [undocumented] people.” The fear Marina describes manifests in spite of her awareness of some of DACA's benefits: “The key benefit is my tax refund. I receive a lot more money back. […] Secondly, it's also easier to find work. You have a valid social security number.” Marina did not mention reprieve from deportation as a “key benefit” of DACA.

Despite her DACAmented status at the time of our 2015 interview, Marina describes herself as having been “indifferent” about signing up for DACA, stemming in part from her belief that she “could live like anyone else” in Dallas while undocumented: “I did the normal routine. Went to work, drove, ate out at restaurants sometimes. Went to the market. […] It was as if nothing was up all the time. You could live like anyone else.” This belief was particularly the case for Marina within Dallas, where “you can enjoy many things”: “In this city, there are many things to go see. They are not going to close the door just because you are illegal. They don't tell you illegals aren't allowed when you are paying. No one has to know that you aren't legal.” The potential of leaving Dallas, however, entailed some fear for Marina: “You worry about not having documents when you want to travel to a different place. For example, you want to visit some place and you have this fear.” She recounted how she and her husband had wanted to visit San Antonio but, because it fell within 100 miles of the Mexico-US border, they feared that they would run into an immigration checkpoint and be deported. Remaining within Dallas kept them safe, they believed (see Reference Coleman and KocherColeman and Kocher 2011).

Marina's parents and husband nonetheless encouraged her to enroll in DACA because they viewed it as a rare opportunity to “legalize.”Footnote ¹⁸ Marina gathered documents demonstrating her eligibility for DACA, including medical and school records as well as tax filings. Although these documents help legalizing immigrants to “speak back to the state” by demonstrating a record of their positive contributions to US society (e.g., Reference Abarca and CoutinAbarca and Coutin 2018; Reference Menjívar and LakhaniMenjívar and Lakhani 2016), collecting and delivering this paper trail to the US immigration regime also makes visible immigrants who previously strived to limit their visibility. Marina shared this sentiment in an interview in 2015, outlining how she believed her DACA enrollment makes her subject to government surveillance and deportation, perhaps more so than when she was undocumented. Of particular concern to Marina is the data sharing she notes between federal and nonfederal law enforcement that could lead to her deportation for even minor offenses:

Marina surrendered her perceived invisibility to the federal immigration regime when she applied for DACA, a program with an uncertain future at the time of this writing. Marina's fears of visibility to the US immigration regime are therefore not likely to dissipate.

Araceli, a 29-year-old mother of two from Mexico, likewise reports fears stemming from her perceived legibility to the US immigration regime's bureaucratic arm. She entered the United States at the age of eight in 1994 with a tourist visa that she later overstayed. In 2012, Araceli became a DACA beneficiary. Like Marina, Araceli understood the material benefits of DACA once she applied, but she was initially uncertain about participating. She hired an attorney for $1500 to guide her through the application process because she did not trust an US immigration regime that has disproportionately swept her co-nationals into its punitive arm:

Fear of approaching the federal immigration bureaucracy can have serious consequences. Araceli probably understood better than most respondents the importance of US citizenship for promoting immigrants' sense of stability in the country. Her father, who had lived and worked in the United States as an undocumented farm worker, had reportedly been eligible to apply for citizenship through a 1986 amnesty that ultimately would have extended to his children. But, uncertain about subjecting his family to the “difficult life” that living in the United States can entail, he did not to apply: “For him, living in the United States was not life for a Mexican. But where are his children now? He was a fool. My brother and I still do not forgive him for that. He should have applied for citizenship anyway.” Holding a tenuous DACA status, Araceli does not see recourse to legalization going forward.

Lawful permanent residents in the study also perceive their legibility to the federal immigration bureaucracy as a source of risk. I first met 43-year-old Yajaira in 2013. Her husband had spent years working undocumented in the United States but legalized following the 1986 amnesty. Lacking the resources to legalize Yajaira, he paid a coyote to facilitate her clandestine passage into the country. Yajaira would spend more than a decade undocumented. Now a lawful permanent resident, she believes she led a more “peaceful” life while undocumented. She describes fears stemming from her perceived legibility to the federal immigration bureaucracy:

A primary source of Yajaira's worries is her perceived legibility to the regime's bureaucratic arm. She warns that documented immigrants “shouldn't drink, shouldn't be heading in the wrong direction because you know all of that will appear in their system. The first thing they are going to check is whether you have a bad record or not.” For Yajaira, the federal immigration bureaucracy is a record-keeping body actively searching for reasons to punish those inside it.

The threat of punishment emanating from Latin American immigrants' embeddedness in the federal immigration bureaucracy can have negative consequences. Yajaira describes how some legalized immigrants, such as her cousin, have let their documents expire in order to regain some degree of perceived illegibility to the US immigration regime. One of Yajaira's nephews, meanwhile, has overstayed his H2B visa for agricultural work so that he may continue working with his US-based employer. Despite the perceived sense of illegibility that Yajaira's relatives may gain from “opting out” of legal status, Yajaira notes how neither can truly do so. Detailed records live on in the federal immigration regime even when someone has fallen out of status: “Who knows what's going to happen to them? Maybe if some new amnesty is implemented…they won't be able to do it because they are already in the system…. People think, ‘No, but La Migra doesn't know anything.’ But they know everything. They get into the system and they know everything because it appears there in the record.”

Perceived legibility to the bureaucratic arm of the US immigration regime represents a source of risk among documented immigrants who initially entered the country lawfully as well. Consider the case of Luisa, a 56-year-old lawful permanent resident from Mexico, who did not join her husband in the United States until she could do so with documents. Her husband, Pancho, benefitted from the 1986 amnesty, after which he successfully petitioned for his family to enter the country. “It took years,” Luisa told me in 2015, “but in 1996 we came here and joined him.” Luisa was willing to wait because, in contrast to most other respondents at the time of their first US migration, she was already a parent to six children: “How can you come [undocumented] with six children to the United States? I wasn't going to leave them over there either.” Despite having entered the country as a legalized immigrant, Luisa reports fears similar to those of the documented respondents who entered undocumented. She identifies her perceived legibility to the federal immigration bureaucracy as a primary source of risk: “You have to follow the law. You have to behave yourself if you don't want anything bad to happen to you.” Asked to clarify this point, Luisa explained the government “has all the papers about you…and they have your fingerprints. You have to follow the law. You have to or you will get caught, and they'll take you and send you back to where you came from.”

5.3 Illegibility to the US Immigration Regime: Undocumented and Unknown?

The fears of “legal” and “illegal” immigrants who had previously been detained or deported and those of “legal” immigrants with no reported record of punishment overlap. All view themselves as embedded in the formal records of the US immigration regime and facing stiff penalties should they be deemed to violate the law. The only respondents who perceive themselves to be outside the formal records of the US immigration regime are those who are undocumented and who report never having been apprehended or detained for immigration-related reasons. The experiences of these 23 respondents reveal how perceived legibility to the US immigration regime can be so fraught with risk that it discourages pursuit of rare legalization opportunities.

During our third interview in 2015, I asked a 29-year-old Mexican mother of two named Josefina when she worries about deportation. She did not hesitate to challenge the premise of my question: “Why would I have to worry about that?” She explained that, because “I don't know La Migra and La Migra doesn't know me,” she need not worry.

I admitted my surprise to Josefina. After all, reliable national surveys of undocumented Latinos point to these individuals' fears of deportation (see Reference Lopez and RohalLopez and Rohal 2017). Josefina understood that her status as an undocumented immigrant limits access to resources useful for mobility in the United States, such as a well-paying job, a driver's license, and health insurance. She nonetheless views herself as living a “normal” life: “I do all the normal things. I hadn't really thought about it [deportation] until just now. I am never thinking that, if I go out, I'll never come back….”

Several factors help to explain Josefina's beliefs about her risk of deportation. At the individual level is her lack of experience with the US immigration regime's punitive arm. Josefina says La Migra did not apprehend her when she entered the country in 2005, and she has not noticed them in Dallas since. As years have passed, Josefina has adopted, and expects to maintain, the “good” behaviors she believes will keep her out of trouble—such as being cautious or driving carefully—noted in previous research (Reference AndrewsAndrews 2018; Reference GarcíaGarcía 2019).

At a relational level, Josefina's extensive network of family and friends represent a source of safety for her. News reports about parents separated from their children do give Josefina pause, but her parents, her partner, and her children's US-citizen godparents reassure Josefina that her children would be provided for in the event of her untimely deportation.

Features of her local context also contribute to Josefina's perception of risk. When her partner considered moving to Virginia in 2014, Josefina rejected the idea. She explained she feels “safe” in her predominantly-Hispanic neighborhood and does not want to risk moving: “[My partner] says that they are stricter over there [in Virginia]—La Migra and all of that. […] We're also used to Dallas, so we don't have to have that fear of getting to know a new place.” The punitive US immigration regime anchors Josefina and her family in place out of fear of moving to a new place with a potentially different context of immigration enforcement (as in Reference Coleman and KocherColeman and Kocher 2011: 236).

Although Josefina's perceived illegibility to the US immigration regime represents a source of safety from deportation, this perceived safety comes at a cost. For example, though Josefina says she was eligible for DACA, which would have granted her work authorization and temporary reprieve from deportation, she believed that DACA is “something that's not for me” and decided not to apply. Her response underscores how legibility to a punitive federal immigration regime can represent a pathway to surveillance and deportation: “For us Mexicans, the point is not getting caught. Why would I let La Migra find us?”

Other undocumented respondents report a similar feeling of insulation from deportability by virtue of their perceived lack of system embeddedness. Like Josefina, a 44-year-old mother of three named Adriana says she does not “know La Migra, except for what they show on the news.” Officials did not apprehend her when she entered the country in 1995, nor has Adriana seen La Migra in her majority-Hispanic neighborhood since she settled in it over 20 years ago. For Adriana, life in Dallas is akin to life back home, though she recognizes the constraints associated with lacking documentation: “It's like being in Mexico, but we don't have permission to work here because we don't have papers.”

Adriana's perceived illegibility to the federal immigration regime is a primary factor underlying her viewpoint. When we spoke in 2015, Adriana's eldest son had just turned 18. As a US citizen, her son may sponsor his mother for a green card when he turns 21; Adriana believed 18 was the minimum age. Adriana wanted to call US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that processes legalization applications, to inquire about her eligibility but hesitated: “[W]hat if I'm wrong [about my eligibility] and they find out about me being undocumented?” Adriana's 16-year-old, US-citizen daughter offered to call USCIS, but Adriana feared becoming legible to the US immigration regime: “I told her, ‘No, I'm too scared to call. They can figure out I'm here and take me away.’ She says she doesn't think they can do that since we're not going to give them all my information, but I don't know.”

Adriana's main concern is a requirement of US immigration law that stipulates that immigrants who enter the country undocumented but then apply to legalize must return to their home country.Footnote ¹⁹ After more than two decades in the United States without being deported, however, Adriana questions whether she should make herself known to USCIS and risk this form of “deportation.” If she were ineligible for a green card, then Adriana believes she would have identified herself unnecessarily to USCIS and subjected herself to their surveillance and punishment. Although Adriana is likely not yet eligible for legalization, the uncertainty she perceives surrounding the process may keep her in an undocumented status going forward.

For some undocumented respondents, the costs of perceived legibility to the federal immigration bureaucracy outweigh the potential benefits. Pedro, a 42-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico and father to four US-citizen children, declared in our third interview: “I do not have to be afraid of being deported just because I'm undocumented.” He was not apprehended when he entered the country via airplane in 1989. Once settled with his aunt and four brothers in Dallas, Pedro started work in construction. Though he has seen news reports that justify why some undocumented immigrants might fear deportation, these stories do not resonate with his experiences: “I don't know, maybe it's because I haven't noticed them, but I haven't seen La Migra since I've been here.”

Pedro nonetheless worries about his perceived legibility to the US immigration regime. He reports having been eligible for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), a program similar to DACA but for undocumented parents. A federal district court in Texas blocked DAPA in 2015, and the program was rescinded 2 years later. Pedro interprets the program's demise as a “good thing,” viewing it as a surveillance tool: “I think La Migra is trying to check us out. […] They're trying to get their census of us.” Pedro's perceived lack of system embeddedness represents a source of safety for him: “We're not registered to the government. […] But I behave and follow the rules and don't cause trouble. As long as I keep doing that, no, I don't have papers, and I don't need them.” But if evidence of the outcomes of DACA recipients relative to nonrecipients is any indication (Reference Gonzales, Terriquez and RuszczykGonzales et al. 2014), the fear Pedro associates with legibility to the US immigration regime may hinder his life chances.

Uncertainty about approaching a government institution seemingly unaware of one's presence can have a chilling effect on legalization opportunities. When we met in 2013, Rocío was expecting her third child. During that interview, the 22-year-old proclaimed somewhat provocatively: “To me, La Migra does not exist.” Rocío's mother carried a 2-year-old Rocío into the country using other relatives' US passports. More than 20 years later, Rocío remains undocumented but her unaccented English allows her to pass as American in daily life.

I asked Rocío why majorities of undocumented immigrants nationwide report worrying about La Migra even though she does not (see Reference Lopez and RohalLopez and Rohal 2017). Rocío explained how she sees news reports about deportation but believes “it's a whole different world” than her own: “I've never had a problem with that, and I've never seen it happen around me. […] It's something I hear about, but, to me, it's a whole different world.”

The situation changed in 2015 when, 1 month before our third interview, Rocío's mom was deported. Years after her entry into the United States, Rocío's mother had married a long-lost love from Mexico, a green card holder. She later received her own green card. The couple, based in San Diego, planned to visit Rocío in Dallas. It would have been the first time in 5 years that Rocío saw her mother. But, as Rocío recounts, her mother never made it:

These events, in Rocío's words, had “undone everything” that her mother worked for in her quest to become a lawful permanent resident. Her mother's experiences signaled to Rocío that no good could come from legibility to the federal immigration regime. Rocío explained why, despite her reported eligibility, she sees “no point” in DACA: “They only give you more privileges, but they can take them away whenever they want. […] It's like, why? Just letting the government know where we are, who we are? It's a different way of keeping us in control and all together. They give us a little bit more, but what they take from us is way more.”