“Foreigners in a Domestic Sense:” Local Contexts, Temporal Juxtapositions, and Migrant “Illegality” in Puerto Rico

• In Event: The Increasing Significance of Local Context in Immigrant Integration

Abstract

Literature on migrant “illegality” has overwhelmingly focused on the Global North, emphasizing deportability and legal exclusion. Yet, this literature often presumes a clear distinction between legal inclusion (citizenship) and exclusion (illegality), overlooking how historical and structural dynamics beyond the nation-state shape local experiences—and, in turn, undocumented life. Drawing on ethnographic research on Dominican migration in Puerto Rico (2019-2024)—including 133 in-depth interviews, nearly 1,000 hours of participant observation, and media analysis—this paper examines the shifting construction and experience of migrant “illegality” in a colonial context where citizenship is partial, racialized, and historically contested.

Using the concepts of historical conjunctures and the method of juxtaposition, I argue that during my fieldwork, undocumented immigrants in Puerto Rico experienced a qualitatively distinct form of illegality. I describe this experience as being “foreigners in a domestic sense.” Attentive to the racialization Dominicans faced during the 1990s through punitive policing and immigration enforcement—and their shifting position following a U.S.-mandated police reform and the granting of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in 2013—I show how undocumented immigrants’ inclusion, exclusion and mobility are shaped by characteristics of the local context, yet inseparable from colonial governance, neoliberal reforms, and broader historical and geopolitical forces. Prior to the second Trump administration, undocumented Dominican immigrants encountered a historic conjunctural window of relative relief—one that reshaped, but did not resolve, their illegalized social position.

By juxtaposing temporal and spatial contexts, this paper challenges narratives framing local contexts as increasingly significant in shaping immigrant life, while avoiding the hierarchical ranking of illegality implied in comparative approaches. More broadly, I demonstrate that migrant “illegality” is not experienced solely through immigration law but also emerges from historical conjunctures shaped by intersecting geopolitical imperatives, offering insights for migration studies, colonial studies, transnationalism, and race studies.

Author

• Carlos Alberto Aguilar Gonzalez, University of Pennsylvania