Beyond Dreamers: The Under-analyzed Complexity of the Undocumented Youth Population

• In Event: 2107 - Migrant Youth Navigating (Il)Legality

Abstract

Much of the literature, let alone the public imagination, is focused on one segment of the undocumented youth population: Latinos brought to the US as young children who received the temporary Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. Although the term “Dreamers” is now less popular among actors in immigrant rights social movements, it persists as a common descriptor of hard-working undocumented youth from poor families, striving for upward mobility and blameless for their parents’ decisions to bring them to the US. Yet, the population of young undocumented people in the US is much more complex, even if we focus on the small fraction who are college students.
In this paper, we begin to explore this complexity and its consequences on the lives of undocumented youth. We rely on our analysis of 103 interviews with undocumented college students in New York City, conducted in 2018, which is a diverse population that includes many Asian and Black immigrants, as well as Latinos from a wide range of countries. We start by examining the racial diversity of the undocumented youth population in New York. We analyze their pathways to undocumented status, including entry without inspection and overstaying tourist and student visas, and how these articulate with country of origin and socioeconomic status. Then, we consider how undocumented youth’s access to status adjustment – including marriage, asylum, family sponsorship, U visa, Special Immigrant Juvenile status, as well as the temporary status of DACA – varies by their pathway to undocumented status and other characteristics. Our paper seeks to expand the scholarly conversations on undocumented youth by demonstrating the complexity of this population, as well as to influence public and institutional policies that are often based on inaccurate assumptions.

Authors

• Sofya Aptekar, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Amy Hsin, Queens College, CUNY