How Liberal and Illiberal Localities Help Construct Legal Status and Citizenship

• In Event: Citizenship

Abstract

This paper’s focus is how liberal and illiberal localities either target or protect undocumented immigrants and affect the meaning of citizenship for their (mostly US Citizen) children. In this paper, we argue that localities play a key role in increasing/decreasing how much legal status affects the lives of undocumented immigrants and their mostly US citizen children, and on their future participation as citizens. While immigration law is a federal power under the constitution, localities (and states, but we focus on localities) can promote integration and participation or exclusion and deportation based on how local institutions, such as the police, cooperate, or do not, with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). We draw on a large, longitudinal, ethnographic study in New York State (5 localities, over 1700 surveys, over 200 interviews, and fieldwork). In the paper, we present data showing how the policies and practices of several institutions (especially the police and schools) vary across localities, and differentially affect the well-being of the US citizen children in these families, how immigrants and their US citizen children view the police, schools and other institutions, and other findings. Our data come from a longitudinal ethnographic project that includes 5 localities, a 1700 person survey, over 200 interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork. We argue that our research points to the need to increase our sophistication of current understandings of the erosion of liberal norms. While most research in political science has largely conceived of the erosion of norms and institutions in national and macrostructural terms, our research points to the fact that these processes have local developments which do not exactly mirror national shifts. The paper also makes the case for a reconceptualization of understandings of illiberalism to include local political dynamics.

Authors

• Andres Besserer Rayas, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

• Robert Courtney Smith, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, and Sociology, Grad Center, CUNY