Inherently Violent: Unaccompanied Minors from Central America and the Immigration Adjustment Status Process

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

Abstract

This paper focuses on unaccompanied minors from Central America living outside of detention centers as they navigate the United States’ non-detained immigration adjustment process. In this paper, I draw on 2.5 years of ethnographic research with 12 Central American unaccompanied minors in San Francisco to demonstrate that the process that unaccompanied minors experience to fight their deportation cases and adjust their immigration status relies upon minors’ articulation of violent and vulnerable experiences. Using sociological literature on legal violence I show that unaccompanied minors are forced to self-disclose traumatic experiences or situations, which produces physical and emotional injuries. Disclosing trauma and vulnerability is essential to many forms of immigration adjustment unaccompanied minors are eligible for such as: asylum, U-Visa petition, or a T-Visa petition. This case study demonstrates that the immigration legal systems’ processes are inherently injurious and that those who engage in them experience legal violence. 

Author

• Kati Barahona-López, University of California, Santa Cruz