The Deportability of the Central American Undocumented Community: Immigrant Right Advocate’s Perceptions, Experiences, and Realities

• In Event: Latin@ Criminology Panel 4: Strategies of Resistance Among Immigrants, Students, and Prisoners

Abstract

This study seeks to understand how immigrant rights advocates and immigrant service providers perceive, experience, and approach immigration raids, apprehensions, and deportations. I will collect in-depth interviews and ethnographic data with immigrant rights advocates and service providers in Southern California. This study attempts to understand how advocates and immigrant service providers talk about and organize for immigrants. In order to address this part of the study, I will interview advocates and service providers who interact with or serve Central American unaccompanied minors and families and will conduct participant observation within immigrant-rights organization’s community meetings, immigration rallies, and outreach campaigns. The following research question guides this study: what are immigrant-rights advocates doing in response to raids targeting the Central American immigrant community? I draw on De Genova’s (2002) concept of “illegality” and “deportability,” as well as Hernandez’s (2014) definition of “confinement,” Bryane’s (2014) concept of “system avoidance,” and Cohen and Felson’s (1979) routine activities theory to show how the undocumented community is perceived and treated in the receiving country. My research could help understand the role of community organizations in influencing both local and national governmental policies. I plan to make the results known to community organizations, governmental officials, and migrants.

Author

• Jose Alfredo Torres, University of California, Irvine