Shades of Citizenship: Intermittent (I)legality and Irregular Birth Records in the Mexico–US Borderspace

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 10: Borderlands

Abstract

The U.S.-Mexico border is a space of both integration and exclusion, shaped by historical cross-border mobility and increasing securitization. Within this context, cross-border births—where children are born in the U.S. to Mexican parents but raised in Mexico—raise questions about the relationship between legal citizenship and sociocultural belonging. Despite being socially integrated in Mexico, those born before the 1998 nationality law allowing dual citizenship faced a legal paradox: they were either classified as "foreigners" in their home country or forced to navigate irregular pathways to Mexican citizenship.
Scholarship on citizenship highlights the tension between its legal and social dimensions, showing that formal status does not guarantee full membership rights. Furthermore, research on liminal legality and precarious legal statuses has demonstrated how ambiguous legal categorization creates chronic uncertainty, even for those with formal documentation. Additionally, authors have shown that legality and illegality are not fixed states but are continuously negotiated and sometimes revoked through institutional interactions. This literature provides a framework for understanding how individuals with U.S. citizenship but weak institutional ties experience citizenship as an unstable and contingent status in Mexico.
Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews with cross-border-born individuals raised in Tijuana, civil registry officials and local legal experts, this study examines how individuals born through this practice manage their legal status, access rights, and negotiate their sense of belonging. It describes how many secured Mexican birth certificates through informal means—doctors, priests, or civil officials willing to falsify records. While these documents allowed them to function as Mexican citizens, their legal status remained vulnerable to scrutiny. Some sought regularization after 1998, yet misinformation, fear, and socioeconomic factors shaped their decisions. Ultimately, this study highlights how legal citizenship and national belonging remain precariously intertwined, shaped by social class, institutional interactions, and the risk of legal unmasking.

Author

• Victor Patricio Verde Neri, University of California-San Diego