undocumented immigrants essay

Words Matter: Illegal Immigrant, Undocumented Immigrant, or Unauthorized Immigrant?

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The labels we use to refer to different classes of individuals are not merely neutral descriptors but often implicitly come with various associations or value judgments, which can, in turn, frame and influence political debates.

Immigration protest signs saying "Stop the Raids" and "No one is illegel"

"No One is Illegal! May Day of Action"  by  Tania Liu  is licensed under  CC BY-ND 2.0

Jonathan Kwan ( @migrationethics ) is the Inclusive Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow in Immigration Ethics with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Views are his own.

What term should we use to describe the 11 million or so people who have entered or reside within the U.S. without official government authorization? “Illegal immigrants,” “undocumented immigrants,” “unauthorized immigrants,” or something else entirely? The labels we use to refer to different classes of individuals are not merely neutral descriptors but often implicitly come with various associations or value judgments, which can, in turn, frame and influence political debates.

Conservatives tend to favor the term “illegal immigrant” and argue that it is the most precise because, unlike other terms such as “undocumented immigrant,” it underscores the legal violation that took place. However, critics of the phrase “illegal immigrant,” such as the Drop the I-Word campaign contend that “illegal immigrant” is actually imprecise or, at the very least, misleading. “Illegal” blankets all cases with connotations of criminality but different cases are treated differently under the law. For instance, living in the U.S. without authorization, such as overstaying a visa but entering the country legally, is a civil but not a criminal offense. “Illegal” also carries with it a finality that obscures the fluidity of immigration status, which can be adjusted based on different individual circumstances.

In 2013, the Associated Press (AP) changed its stylebook to no longer sanction the use of “illegal immigrant” on the ground that “illegal” should only describe an action but not a person. This represented an important shift due to the many newspapers that follow the AP’s style recommendations. Activists and immigrant advocates, of course, have long proclaimed, “No person is illegal.” The AP saw this change as consistent with its general practice of rejecting labels (for instance, saying someone is “diagnosed with schizophrenia” rather than “schizophrenic”). Instead of “illegal immigrant,” the AP suggests “living in or entering a country illegally” or “without legal permission.” But “illegal immigration” is still accepted by the AP insofar as this phrase does not describe people as “illegal.”

More recently, in April 2021, the Biden administration instructed U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to replace the term "illegal alien" (which is used throughout U.S. immigration law) with "undocumented noncitizen."

Even more damning is the critique that the term “illegal immigrant” functions as a racist dog whistle that buoys the idea that America is or should be a white nation. U.S. immigration law, from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the national origins quota system, has historically played a role in constructing categories of racial difference that have served to exclude those not considered white or white enough from the U.S. polis. As José Mendoza put it, “the notion of illegality plays a large role in constructing, perpetuating, and solidifying whiteness … illegality , like race, has historically functioned as a signifier of nonwhiteness and thereby marks entire communities (e.g., Latino and Asian communities) as nonwhite.” The ways in which racist ideologies are bound up with U.S. immigration policies are unfortunately not just historical artifacts but continue to this day, as is evidenced by former President Trump’s comments referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as “shithole countries.”

If “illegal immigrant” is imprecise and racially problematic, what term should be used instead? Pro-immigrant liberals often prefer the term “undocumented immigrant.” The nonprofit Define American , in its criticism of phrases such as “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien,” recommends “undocumented American.” But “undocumented immigrant” has its shortcomings too. For many conservatives, “undocumented immigrant” smacks of euphemism, which makes it seem as though the matter were simply a clerical or administrative error—as if some document was misplaced or not properly issued. And “undocumented immigrant” is itself imprecise since an individual may have many documents even if they did not enter the country legally or do not have federal authorization to continue residing in the country. New York City residents, for instance, can be issued an identification card regardless of their immigration status. And “undocumented American,” which presumably is meant to challenge the idea that only citizens are Americans, could also be problematically imposing a label on people that they do not necessarily endorse themselves—after all, not everyone identifies or wants to be seen as an American.

Perhaps better than “undocumented immigrant” is “unauthorized immigrant,” which makes it clear that the issue is not merely the lack of documentation (even if not having the right papers can indeed be a serious problem for many people in different situations) but the lack of government authorization to enter or reside in the country. Though “unauthorized” does not carry with it the negative connotations of criminality associated with “illegal,” “unauthorized” is not necessarily neutral or free from value judgments itself.

The word “authority,” for instance, is ambiguous between an entity who in fact has the power to make some determination and an entity who should have (i.e. is legitimately entitled to or has the right to) such power. When we say, “The DMV is the authority that decides who is issued a driver’s license,” we mean authority in the first descriptive sense. If we say, “Women should be the authorities on whether or not abortions are legal,” we mean authority in the second value-laden sense. Oftentimes we use “authority” in both senses. If we say, “Parents are the authorities when it comes to the well-being of their children,” we might mean both that parents do in fact have the power to decide the well-being of their children and that they should have this power. Sometimes it may not be clear what sense of “authority” is being used, or “authority” may be used in one sense but carry with it connotations of the other sense or be (mis) interpreted in that way.

The ambiguities and value-laden connotations of authority can consequently import into the term “unauthorized immigrant.” If there are unauthorized immigrants, then are there authorized immigrants as well? Does “unauthorized immigrant” imply that those immigrants should be unauthorized? What kind of authorization do they lack? Who decided they are unauthorized? Who has the right to decide this and why? Perhaps there should be no unauthorized immigrants at all! Or perhaps more deeply, there should not even be a distinction between immigrants who are authorized and immigrants who are unauthorized.

The broader lesson that I think should be drawn from this discussion is that the terms we use to refer to different groups of people are not merely neutral or impartial descriptions. Instead, the very words we use to understand our social and political world can not only influence political debates and opinions but may already carry with them implicit ethical judgments about how to structure and change our world. But this doesn’t mean that we should just give up on describing our world accurately or abandon critical investigation of the words we use as just overblown and overly sensitive “political correctness.” Rather it means that how we see our world goes hand in hand with what our values are. How we should describe different classes of immigrants will depend partly and more broadly on what we envision justice in immigration to be.

Originally published February, 2021. Updated January, 2022 to include terminology changes by the Biden Administration.

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Waking Up from the American Dream

If you are an undocumented person anywhere in America, some of the things you do to make a dignified life for yourself and your loved ones are illegal. Others require a special set of skills. The elders know some great tricks—crossing deserts in the dead of night, studying the Rio Grande for weeks to find the shallowest bend of river to cross, getting a job on their first day in the country, finding apartments that don’t need a lease, learning English at public libraries, community colleges, or from “Frasier.” I would not have been able to do a single thing that the elders have done. But the elders often have only one hope for survival, which we tend not to mention. I’m talking about children. And no, it’s not an “anchor baby” thing. Our parents have kids for the same reasons as most people, but their sacrifice for us is impossible to articulate, and its weight is felt deep down, in the body. That is the pact between immigrants and their children in America: they give us a better life, and we spend the rest of that life figuring out how much of our flesh will pay off the debt.

I am a first-generation immigrant, undocumented for most of my life, then on DACA , now a permanent resident. But my real identity, the one that follows me around like a migraine, is that I am the daughter of immigrants. As such, I have some skills of my own.

You pick them up young. Something we always hear about, because Americans love this shit, is that immigrant children often translate for their parents. I began doing this as a little girl, because I lost my accent, dumb luck, and because I was adorable in the way that adults like, which is to say I had large, frightened eyes and a flamboyant vocabulary. As soon as doctors or teachers began talking, I felt my parents’ nervous energy, and I’d either answer for them or interpret their response. It was like my little Model U.N. job. I was around seven. My career as a professional daughter of immigrants had begun.

In my teens, I began to specialize. I became a performance artist. I accompanied my parents to places where I knew they would be discriminated against, and where I could insure that their rights would be granted. If a bank teller wasn’t accepting their I.D., I’d stroll in with an oversized Forever 21 blazer, red lipstick, a slicked-back bun, and fresh Stan Smiths. I brought a pleather folder and made sure my handshake broke bones. Sometimes I appealed to decency, sometimes to law, sometimes to God. Sometimes I leaned back in my chair, like a sexy gangster, and said, “So, you tell me how you want my mom to survive in this country without a bank account. You close at four, but I have all the time in the world.” Then I’d wink. It was vaudeville, but it worked.

My parents came to America in their early twenties, naïve about what awaited them. Back in Ecuador, they had encountered images of a wealthy nation—the requisite flashes of Clint Eastwood and the New York City skyline—and heard stories about migrants who had done O.K. for themselves there. But my parents were not starry-eyed people. They were just kids, lost and reckless, running away from the dead ends around them.

My father is the only son of a callous mother and an absent father. My mother, the result of her mother’s rape, grew up cared for by an aunt and uncle. When she married my father, it was for the reasons a lot of women marry: for love, and to escape. The day I was born, she once told me, was the happiest day of her life.

Soon after that, my parents, owners of a small auto-body business, found themselves in debt. When I was eighteen months old, they left me with family and settled in Brooklyn, hoping to work for a year and move back once they’d saved up some money. I haven’t asked them much about this time—I’ve never felt the urge—but I know that one year became three. I also know that they began to be lured by the prospect of better opportunities for their daughter. Teachers had remarked that I was talented. My mother, especially, felt that Ecuador was not the place for me. She knew how the country would limit the woman she imagined I would become—Hillary Clinton, perhaps, or Princess Di.

My parents sent loving letters to Ecuador. They said that they were facing a range of hardships so that I could have a better life. They said that we would reunite soon, though the date was unspecified. They said that I had to behave, not walk into traffic—I seem to have developed a habit of doing this—and work hard, so they could send me little gifts and chocolates. I was a toddler, but I understood. My parents left to give me things, and I had to do other things in order to repay them. It was simple math.

They sent for me when I was just shy of five years old. I arrived at J.F.K. airport. My father, who seemed like a total stranger, ran to me and picked me up and kissed me, and my mother looked on and wept. I recall thinking she was pretty, and being embarrassed by the attention. They had brought roses, Teddy bears, and Tweety Bird balloons.

Getting to know one another was easy enough. My father liked to read and lecture, and had a bad temper. My mother was soft-spoken around him but funny and mean—like a drag queen—with me. She liked Vogue . I was enrolled in a Catholic school and quickly learned English—through immersion, but also through “Reading Rainbow” and a Franklin talking dictionary that my father bought me. It gave me a colorful vocabulary and weirdly over-enunciated diction. If I typed the right terms, it even gave me erotica.

Meanwhile, I had confirmed that my parents were not tony expats. At home, meals could be rice and a fried egg. We sometimes hid from our landlord by crouching next to my bed and drawing the blinds. My father had started out driving a cab, but after 9/11, when the governor revoked the driver’s licenses of undocumented immigrants, he began working as a deliveryman, carrying meals to Wall Street executives, the plastic bags slicing into his fingers. Some of those executives forced him to ride on freight elevators. Others tipped him in spare change.

My mother worked in a factory. For seven days a week, sometimes in twelve-hour shifts, she sewed in a heat that caught in your throat like lint, while her bosses, also immigrants, hurled racist slurs at her. Some days I sat on the factory floor, making dolls with swatches of fabric, cosplaying childhood. I didn’t put a lot of effort into making the dolls—I sort of just screwed around, with an eye on my mom at her sewing station, stiffening whenever her supervisor came by to see how fast she was working. What could I do to protect her? Well, murder, I guess.

Our problem appeared to be poverty, which even then, before I’d seen “Rent,” seemed glamorous, or at least normal. All the protagonists in the books I read were poor. Ramona Quimby on Klickitat Street, the kids in “Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.” Every fictional child was hungry, an orphan, or tubercular. But there was something else setting us apart. At school, I looked at my nonwhite classmates and wondered how their parents could be nurses, or own houses, or leave the country on vacation. It was none of my business—everyone in New York had secrets—but I cautiously gathered intel, toothpick in mouth. I finally cracked the case when I tried to apply to an essay contest and asked my parents for my Social Security number. My father was probably reading a newspaper, and I doubt he even looked up to say, “We don’t have papers, so we don’t have a Social.”

It was not traumatic. I turned on our computer, waited for the dial-up, and searched what it meant not to have a Social Security number. “Undocumented immigrant” had not yet entered the discourse. Back then, the politically correct term, the term I saw online, was “illegal immigrant,” which grated—it was hurtful in a clinical way, like having your teeth drilled. Various angry comments sections offered another option: illegal alien . I knew it was form language, legalese meant to wound me, but it didn’t. It was punk as hell. We were hated , and maybe not entirely of this world. I had just discovered Kurt Cobain.

Obviously, I learned that my parents and I could be deported at any time. Was that scary? Sure. But a deportation still seemed like spy-movie stuff. And, luckily, I had an ally. My brother was born when I was ten years old. He was our family’s first citizen, and he was named after a captain of the New York Yankees. Before he was old enough to appreciate art, I took him to the Met. I introduced him to “S.N.L.” and “Letterman” and “Fun Home” and “Persepolis”—all the things I felt an upper-middle-class parent would do—so that he could thrive at school, get a great job, and make money. We would need to armor our parents with our success.

We moved to Queens, and I entered high school. One day, my dad heard about a new bill in Congress on Spanish radio. It was called the DREAM Act, and it proposed a path to legalization for undocumented kids who had gone to school here or served in the military. My dad guaranteed that it’d pass by the time I graduated. I never react to good news—stoicism is part of the brand—but I was optimistic. The bill was bipartisan. John McCain supported it, and I knew he had been a P.O.W., and that made me feel connected to a real American hero. Each time I saw an “R” next to a sponsor’s name my heart fluttered with joy. People who were supposed to hate me had now decided to love me.

But the bill was rejected and reintroduced, again and again, for years. It never passed. And, in a distinctly American twist, its gauzy rhetoric was all that survived. Now there was a new term on the block: “Dreamers.” Politicians began to use it to refer to the “good” children of immigrants, the ones who did well in school and stayed off the mean streets—the innocents. There are about a million undocumented children in America. The non-innocents, one presumes, are the ones in cages, covered in foil blankets, or lost, disappeared by the government.

I never called myself a Dreamer. The word was saccharine and dumb, and it yoked basic human rights to getting an A on a report card. Dreamers couldn’t flunk out of high school, or have D.U.I.s, or work at McDonald’s. Those kids lived with the pressure of needing a literal miracle in order to save their families, but the miracle didn’t happen, because the odds were against them, because the odds were against all of us. And so America decided that they didn’t deserve an I.D.

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The Dream, it turned out, needed to demonize others in order to help the chosen few. Our parents, too, would be sacrificed. The price of our innocence was the guilt of our loved ones. Jeff Sessions, while he was Attorney General, suggested that we had been trafficked against our will. People actually pitied me because my parents brought me to America. Without even consulting me.

The irony, of course, is that the Dream was our inheritance. We were Dreamers because our parents had dreams.

It’s painful to think about this. My mother, an aspiring interior designer, has gone twenty-eight years without a sick day. My dad, who loves problem-solving, has spent his life wanting a restaurant. He’s a talented cook and a brilliant manager, and he often did the work of his actual managers for them. But, without papers, he could advance only so far in a job. He needed to be paid in cash; he could never receive benefits.

He often used a soccer metaphor to describe our journey in America. Our family was a team, but I scored the goals. Everything my family did was, in some sense, a pass to me. Then the American Dream could be mine, and then we could start passing to my brother. That’s how my dad explained his limp every night, his feet blistered from speed-running deliveries. It’s why we sometimes didn’t have money for electricity or shampoo. Those were fouls. Sometimes my parents did tricky things to survive that you’ll never know about. Those were nutmegs. In 2015, when the U.S. women’s team won the World Cup, my dad went to the parade and sent me a selfie. “Girl power!” the text read.

My father is a passionate, diatribe-loving feminist, though his feminism often seems to exclude my mother. When I was in elementary school, he would take me to the local branch of the Queens Public Library and check out the memoir of Rosalía Arteaga Serrano, the only female President in Ecuador’s history. Serrano was ousted from office, seemingly because she was a woman. My father would read aloud from the book for hours, pausing to tell me that I’d need to toughen up. He would read from dictators’ speeches—not for the politics, but for the power of persuasive oratory. We went to the library nearly every weekend for thirteen years.

My mother left her factory job to give me, the anointed one, full-time academic support. She pulled all-nighters to help me make extravagant posters. She grilled me with vocabulary flash cards, struggling to pronounce the words but laughing and slapping me with pillows if I got something wrong. I aced the language portions of my PSATs and SATs, partly because of luck, and partly because of my parents’ locally controversial refusal to let me do household chores, ever, because they wanted me to be reading, always reading, instead.

If this all seems strategic, it should. The American Dream doesn’t just happen to cheery Pollyannas. It happens to iconoclasts with a plan and a certain amount of cunning. The first time I encountered the idea of the Dream, it was in English class, discussing “The Great Gatsby.” My classmates all thought that Gatsby seemed sort of sad, a pathetic figure. I adored him. He created his own persona, made a fortune in an informal economy, and lived a quiet, paranoid, reclusive life. Most of all, he longed. He stood at the edge of Long Island Sound, longing for Daisy, and I took the train uptown to Columbia University and looked out at the campus, hoping it could one day be mine. At the time, it was functionally impossible for undocumented students to enroll at Columbia. The same held for many schools. Keep dreaming, my parents said.

I did. I was valedictorian of my class, miraculously got into Harvard, and was tapped to join a secret society that once included T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. I was the only Latina inducted, I think, and I was very chill when an English-Spanish dictionary appeared in our club bathroom after I started going to teas. When I graduated, in 2011, our country was deporting people at record rates. I knew that I needed to add even more of a golden flicker to my illegality, so that if I was deported, or if my parents were deported, we would not go in the middle of the night, in silence, anonymously, as Americans next door watched another episode of “The Bachelor.” So I began writing, with the explicit aim of entering the canon. I wrote a book about undocumented immigrants, approaching them not as shadowy victims or gilded heroes but as people, flawed and complex. It was reviewed well, nominated for things. A President commended it.

But it’s hard to feel anything. My parents remain poor and undocumented. I cannot protect them with prizes or grades. My father sobbed when I handed him my diploma, but it was not the piece of paper that would make it all better, no matter how heavy the stock.

By the time I was in grad school, my parents’ thirty-year marriage was over. They had spent most of those years in America, with their heads down and their bodies broken; it was hard not to see the split as inevitable. My mom called me to say she’d had enough. My brother supported her decision. I talked to each parent, and helped them mutually agree on a date. On a Tuesday night, my father moved out, leaving his old parenting books behind, while my mom and brother were at church. I asked my father to text my brother that he loved him. I think he texted him exactly that. Then I collapsed onto the floor beneath an open drawer of knives, texted my partner to come help me, and convulsed in sobs.

After that, my mom became depressed. I did hours of research and found her a highly qualified, trauma-informed psychiatrist, a Spanish speaker who charged on a sliding scale I could afford. My mom got on Lexapro, which helped. She also started a job that makes her very happy. In order to find her that job, I took a Klonopin and browsed Craigslist for hours each day, e-mailing dozens of people, being vague about legal status in a clever but truthful way. I impersonated her in phone interviews, hanging off my couch, the blood rushing to my head, struggling not to do an offensive accent.

You know how, when you get a migraine, you regret how stupid you were for taking those sweet, painless days for granted? Although my days are hard, I understand that I’m living in an era of painlessness, and that a time will come when I look back and wonder why I was such a stupid, whining fool. My mom’s job involves hard manual labor, sometimes in the snow or the rain. I got her a real winter coat, her first, from Eddie Bauer. I got her a pair of Hunter boots. These were things she needed, things I had seen on women her age on the subway, their hands bearing bags from Whole Foods. My mom’s hands are arthritic. She sends me pictures of them covered in bandages.

My brother and I now have a pact: neither of us can die, because then the other would be stuck with our parents. My brother is twenty-two, still in college, and living with my mom. He, too, has some skills. He is gentle, kind, and excellent at deëscalating conflict. He mediated my parents’ arguments for years. He has also never tried to change them, which I have, through a regimen of therapy, books, and cheesy Instagram quotes. So we’ve decided that, in the long term, since his goal is to get a job, get married, have kids, and stay in Queens, he’ll invite Mom to move in with him, to help take care of the grandkids. He’ll handle the emotional labor, since it doesn’t traumatize him. And I’ll handle the financial support, since it doesn’t traumatize me.

I love my parents. I know I love them. But what I feel for them daily is a mixture of terror, panic, obligation, sorrow, anger, pity, and a shame so hot that I need to lie face down, in my underwear, on very cold sheets. Many Americans have vulnerable parents, and strive to succeed in order to save them. I hold those people in the highest regard. But the undocumented face a unique burden, due to scorn and a lack of support from the government. Because our parents made a choice—the choice to migrate—few people pity them, or wonder whether restitution should be made for decades of exploitation. That choice, the original sin, is why our parents were thrown out of paradise. They were tempted by curiosity and hunger, by fleshly desires.

And so we return to the debt. However my parents suffer in their final years will be related to their migration—to their toil in this country, to their lack of health care and housing support, to psychic fatigue. They were able, because of that sacrifice, to give me their version of the Dream: an education, a New York accent, a life that can better itself. But that life does not fully belong to me. My version of the American Dream is seeing them age with dignity, being able to help them retire, and keeping them from being pushed onto train tracks in a random hate crime. For us, gratitude and guilt feel almost identical. Love is difficult to separate from self-erasure. All we can give one another is ourselves.

Scholars often write about the harm that’s done when children become caretakers, but they’re reluctant to do so when it comes to immigrants. For us, they say, this situation is cultural . Because we grow up in tight-knit families. Because we respect our elders. In fact, it’s just the means of living that’s available to us. It’s a survival mechanism, a mutual-aid society at the family level. There is culture, and then there is adaptation to precarity and surveillance. If we are lost in the promised land, perhaps it’s because the ground has never quite seemed solid beneath our feet.

When I was a kid, my mother found a crystal heart in my father’s taxi. The light that came through it was pretty, shimmering, like a gasoline spill on the road. She put it in her jewelry box, and sometimes we’d take out the box, spill the contents onto my pink twin bed, and admire what we both thought was a heart-shaped diamond. I grew up, I went to college. I often heard of kids who had inherited their grandmother’s heirlooms, and I sincerely believed that there were jewels in my family, too. Then, a few years ago, my partner and I visited my mom, and she spilled out her box. She gave me a few items I cherish: a nameplate bracelet in white, yellow, and rose gold, and the thick gold hoop earrings that she wore when she first moved to Brooklyn. Everything else was costume jewelry. I couldn’t find the heart.

I realized that, when my mother found the crystal, she was around the same age I am now. She had probably never held a diamond, and she probably wanted to believe that she had found one in America, a dream come true. She wanted me to believe it, and then, as we both grew up, alone, together, she stopped believing, stopped wanting to believe, and stopped me from wanting to believe. And she probably threw that shit out. I didn’t ask. Some things are none of our business. ♦

How many undocumented immigrants are in the United States and who are they?

Elaine kamarck and elaine kamarck founding director - center for effective public management , senior fellow - governance studies christine stenglein christine stenglein research analyst, center for effective public management - the brookings institution.

November 12, 2019

Ascertaining the size of the undocumented population is difficult. Estimates vary according to the methodology used. While anti-immigrant groups maintain that the flow of undocumented immigrants has increased, estimates show that over a longer period the number has declined. An often-overlooked fact is that many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes and sales taxes.

A Closer Look

The issue of undocumented immigrants has been front and center in American elections since 2016; it has elicited passionate responses from all parts of the political spectrum. Here are a few facts voters need as they wade through the thicket of rhetoric on this issue.

How do we count people who are here illegally?

Ascertaining the size of the illegal population is difficult because, as is obvious, people who are here illegally don’t always want to tell pollsters their legal status (or absence thereof.) The first step estimators use is to take data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, or ACS, which interviews over 2 million households a year. This survey asks people where they were born and whether they are U.S. citizens, but it does not ask if they are here illegally. This yields a total number for the “foreign-born” population.

The next step is to subtract from that total the number of foreign-born residents who we know for certain are here legally. Among them are naturalized citizens, people who have permanent resident status (green cards), and people who have been admitted as refugees. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps careful records of the first two groups and the Department of Health and Human Services keeps careful records of the third. By subtracting the number of people who we know for certain are here legally from the overall number of foreign-born in the ACS survey we can estimate the number of undocumented residents.

Of course, not all undocumented people take part in surveys, and for good reason—they do not want to be found out. So, most estimates assume that there is an “undercount.” The Pew Research Center relies , in part, on survey and census data from Mexico. They estimate the undercount to be somewhere in the range of 5 to 15 percent, which is then added to the number of undocumented immigrants. DHS believes that the undercount is 10% and adjusts its estimates accordingly.

The size of the undercount is a matter of controversy. Opponents of illegal immigration such as FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) argue that the undercount is in fact much bigger. To get to their estimates they analyze other data such as the percentage of migrants who failed to show up for their immigration hearings and those who have overstayed their visas.

So, what are the numbers?

The numbers of undocumented vary according to the methodology used, and there’s also a lag in the estimates because it takes time for accurate data to become available. The last estimate released by the Office of Immigration Statistics at DHS came in December 2018: As of January 1, 2015, there were 11.96 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The most recent Pew Research estimate puts the total number of unauthorized immigrants at 10.5 million in 2017. Overall, this represents a minority of the foreign-born population, which in 2017 numbered 44.5 million —45% of whom are naturalized citizens , and 27% of whom are lawful permanent residents. 

While anti-immigrant groups maintain that the flow of illegal immigrants has increased, estimates show that over a longer period the number of undocumented immigrants has declined, from 12.2 million in 2005 to 10.5 million in 2017 according to Pew’s estimates. DHS figures don’t go beyond 2015, but they estimate that the population of undocumented immigrants increased by 70,000 people per year between 2010 and 2015, compared to increases of 470,000 per year between 2000 and 2007.

Who are the undocumented?

Immigrants from Mexico have recently, for the first time since 1990, represented less than half of the undocumented population . According to Pew, in 2017, about 4.95 million of the 10.5 million undocumented population were from Mexico, 1.9 million from Central America, and 1.45 million from Asia. About two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have been in the U.S. for 10 years or longer. In 2017, just 20% of undocumented, adult immigrants had lived in the U.S. for 5 years or less.

In contrast to the President Trump’s rhetoric about building a wall at the Mexican border, illegal migration has shifted since 2010 from border-crossing to visa overstays—the latter share has been greater than border crossings since 2010. The Center for Migration Studies estimates that in 2016, 62% of the undocumented were here because they overstayed their visas versus 38% who crossed the border illegally.

Another controversy is over how much illegal immigrants cost the system. An often overlooked fact is that illegal immigrants are taxpayers. The anti-immigrant lobby tends to ignore the money the immigrants often pay in payroll and sales taxes while counting the money spent on educating children born in the United States to immigrants. Numbers vary widely depending on the source, but undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most federal benefit programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. In evaluating the cost of illegal immigration, the voter has to make sure that the argument takes in both benefits consumed and taxes paid.

What about the Dreamers?

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was implemented by President Obama to allow many undocumented individuals who came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday to work in the U.S. and defer any action on their immigration cases for a renewable two-year period. About 800,000 immigrants have been covered by DACA at some point since it was implemented; 690,000 are currently in the program. According to Pew, the gap consists of approximately 70,000 who were rejected for renewal or opted not to renew, and 40,000 who were able to obtain a green card. At present no new applications are being accepted by USCIS, so the number of Dreamers is not likely to grow.

What are the candidates saying?

In the 2020 campaign, President Trump has continued his push for a wall at the southern border, on top of increased enforcement both at the border and in the interior. On the Democratic side, all the candidates support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which would require getting legislation through Congress. There are also shorter-term proposals that a new president could enact on their own, like Elizabeth Warren’s plan to reinstate DACA and to expand deferred action to include more than the Dreamers. Kamala Harris has said she would reinstate DACA and implement DAPA, the shelved policy to protect the Dreamers’ parents. Pete Buttigieg has stated that he would restore the enforcement priorities set by the Obama administration. A number of the Democratic candidates have voiced support for repealing the law that makes it a crime to cross the border without authorization.

As we have seen during the Trump administration, the president can do a great deal even absent legislation to affect the situation of those seeking to come to the United States. 

John Hudak, Elaine Kamarck, Christine Stenglein

June 22, 2017

Elaine Kamarck, John Hudak, Christine Stenglein

August 15, 2017

Elaine Kamarck, Christine Stenglein

February 11, 2019

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Gretchen Frazee Gretchen Frazee

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-constitutional-rights-do-undocumented-immigrants-have

What constitutional rights do undocumented immigrants have?

On Sunday, President Donald Trump tweeted that undocumented immigrants should be immediately returned “from where they came” with “no Judges or Court Cases.”

This, along with the administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy and the recent spike in family separations at the border — a practice President Donald Trump ended through executive order — has called attention to the legal rights of immigrants under U.S. law.

What rights do undocumented immigrants have to a court hearing, to an attorney or to free speech? What rights do their children have to education?

To answer those questions, we must start with a more basic question–does the U.S. Constitution apply to undocumented immigrants?

“Yes, without question,” said Cristina Rodriguez, a professor at Yale Law School. “Most of the provisions of the Constitution apply on the basis of personhood and jurisdiction in the United States.”

Many parts of the Constitution use the term “people” or “person” rather than “citizen.” Rodriguez said those laws apply to everyone physically on U.S. soil, whether or not they are a citizen.

As a result, many of the basic rights, such as the freedom of religion and speech, the right to due process and equal protection under the law apply to citizens and noncitizens. How those rights play out in practice is more complex.

Right to due process

What the law says: The Fifth Amendment states that “no person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

The issue of due process is at the heart of many immigration cases, including Reno v. Flores , the 1993 Supreme Court case that has returned to the spotlight with the surge in family separations. The case led to an agreement requiring the government to release children to their parents, a relative or a licensed program within 20 days.

In the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote “it is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”

How it works in practice: Immigrants have the right to due process. But in reality, says, Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, “courts of law run the gamut.”

In some cases, immigrants are not granted a hearing at all. When asked about the president’s tweet, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders pointed to the process of “expedited removal,” which was created by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

“Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process,” Sanders said.

Under the expedited removal process, immigrants who have been in the country illegally for less than two years and are apprehended within 100 miles of the border can be deported almost immediately without going through a court hearing.

The exception is asylum seekers, who must be granted a hearing.

Those who are not processed through expedited removal have the right to due process in an immigration court, where the main goal is to decide whether a person has a legal claim to remain in the U.S.

“In immigration court, you have very few rights,” said John Gihon, an immigration attorney who spent six years as a prosecutor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before moving into private practice.

Gihon says the bar for what constitutes evidence is lax in immigration court. Documents do not have to be authenticated, and hearsay, a statement made by someone outside of the court, as opposed to on the witness stand, counts as admissible evidence. Hearsay is not allowed in most U.S. courts.

“In the majority of cases, it’s a lock solid 100 percent guaranteed conviction because there is little defense, and most would confess they crossed the border illegally,” Gihon said.

The right to legal counsel

What the law says: The Sixth Amendment states that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall…have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1963 case Gideon v Wainwright that if a person is too poor to hire an attorney, the government must appoint one.

How it works in practice: Because most deportation proceedings are civil rather than criminal cases, the right to legal counsel often doesn’t apply.

The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy now requires most illegal border crossings to be tried as criminal cases, the exception being parents who cross the border illegally with children. After public outcry about separating families, the head of Customs and Border Protection said Monday the agency has stopped referring parents for prosecution. Other immigrants will still be charged with a crime.

Under the law, anyone facing a criminal charge has the right to counsel. However, the government is only required to provide counsel if the person is accused of a felony. Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor.

In recent weeks, people have donated millions of dollars to nonprofit groups to pay for immigrants’ legal fees.

The Trump administration’s decision to criminally charge immigrants has overwhelmed the courts, as demonstrated last month by a leaked photo of a trial in Pecos, Texas.

The image shows dozens of men in orange jumpsuits being tried en masse. In such proceedings, reports the Intercept, which originally published the photo , trials can last only minutes per defendant.

The right to be with your family

What the law says: Critics of family separation have pointed to the legal right to “family integrity.” This right is not spelled out in the Constitution but was established through court rulings in the early 20th century, Rodriguez said.

“People have a right to be with and commune with their family. It’s a very basic principle,” she said.

The government can split up families in extraordinary circumstances, such as in the case of child abuse, but it cannot do so without going through a legal process.

How it works in practice: Before Trump signed the executive order Wednesday, the administration had divided families as a matter of course, without considering the individual cases. The ACLU sued, arguing the policy was unconstitutional.

The court has not issued a final ruling, and the president’s executive order could change the case. But a judge did rule earlier this month that the case could proceed, saying immigrants have a right to “familial association” under the Constitution.

Right to vote or hold office

What the law says: The Constitution does not prohibit anyone from voting. Instead, it spells out who cannot be denied the right to vote. The 14th Amendment says men who are U.S. citizens and over the age of 21 must be allowed to vote, unless they have committed a crime. The 15th Amendment prohibits anyone from denying the right to vote based on skin color and the 19th Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote based on sex (aka being a woman).

It wasn’t until 1926 that all states passed laws barring noncitizens from voting. Congress passed a law 70 years later prohibiting illegal immigrants from voting “for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner.”

How it works in practice: If you are not a U.S. citizen, voting in a federal election could land you in prison for up to three years or lead to deportation. States can impose their own, sometimes harsher, penalties for breaking the law.

However, because elections are largely a local affair, some states allow local governments to decide whether noncitizens can vote in local elections.

In fact, noncitizens in Chicago have been allowed to vote for school board since 1989. New Yorkers who were not citizens were given the same right from 1969 until 2003, when local school boards were abolished there. Now San Francisco and Maryland are also giving noncitizens the right to vote in some local elections.

The right to education

What the law says: There is no “right to education” in the Constitution but two other sections do come into play when considering whether undocumented migrant children should have access to education.

First, in the case Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled that if children who are citizens have access to a free, public education, so should undocumented immigrant children. That is because the 14th Amendment says the government cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

What it means in practice: The court case means undocumented children cannot be prohibited from enrolling in a public school.

But what if a child is being detained and, therefore, does not have access to a public school. That is where, once again, the Flores settlement comes into play.

The settlement requires that facilities where children are kept must meet minimum requirements for providing health care, education, recreation and other child care services.

Right against unreasonable search and seizure

What the law says: The Fourth Amendment establishes the right “against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

What it means in practice: While this law would generally apply to both citizens and noncitizens, there is a key caveat known as the “border search exception.”

This exception dates back to the very first Congress, which passed a law allowing searchers at the border as a means to collecting duties.

As a result, courts have long upheld that searches at the border are not considered “unreasonable” for the very fact that they occur at the border.

The question courts have grappled with since is what constitutes the border. Searches at airports and other ports of entry for example are often considered legal. The Justice Department has also established a 100-mile wide “extended border” where Border Patrol agents can conduct searches if they meet certain criteria.

Gretchen Frazee is a Senior Coordinating Broadcast Producer for the PBS NewsHour.

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The Rights of Immigrants -ACLU Position Paper

"This country has grown and prospered in a climate of constant refreshment by the introduction into our midst of adventurous spirits willing to leave the security and predictability of what they knew in the lands and rulers they adjured for the hope of full equality of rights and opportunities within our borders."

Since this nation's founding, more than 55 million immigrants from every continent have settled in the United States. In fact, with the exception of Native Americans, everyone living in this country is either an immigrant or the descendent of voluntary or involuntary immigrants. Yet every wave of immigration has faced fear and hostility, especially during times of economic hardship, political turmoil, or war:

• During the depression of the 1840s, mobs hostile to immigrant Irish Catholics burned down a convent in Boston and rioted in Philadelphia.
• In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, one of our nation's first immigration laws, to keep out all people of Chinese origin.
• During the "Red Scare" of the 1920s, thousands of foreign-born people suspected of political radicalism were arrested and brutalized. Many were deported without a hearing.
• In 1942, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent had their homes and other property confiscated, and were interned in camps until the end of World War II. During the same period, many Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were excluded under regulations enacted in the 1920s.
• In the 1950s, a government program targeted Mexicans, exclusively, for deportation.

The situation today differs little from that of years past. Fanned by anti-immigrant extremists, and based largely on myths about immigration's effects on the nation's economy, a virulent anti-immigrant movement has been seeking to curtail the rights of many individuals living in the United States. In 1994 California voters adopted "Proposition 187," which denied most basic services to anyone suspected of not being a citizen or legal resident Ð including education, health and social services. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (the new welfare law), which took a wide range of federal benefits and services away from both undocumented and legal immigrants, including food stamps and Supplemental Security Income. (SSI benefits were later restored, but only for those immigrants who entered the country before August 22, 1996, the day the law went into effect). That same year the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) was adopted, foreclosing immigrants from challenging abusive practices and policies of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in court.

It is true that the Constitution does not give foreigners the right to enter the U.S. But once here, it protects them from discrimination based on race and national origin and from arbitrary treatment by the government. Immigrants work and pay taxes; legal immigrants are subject to the military draft. Many immigrants have lived in this country for decades, married U.S. citizens, and raised their U.S.-citizen children. Laws that punish them violate their fundamental right to fair and equal treatment. The Immigrants' Rights Project of the ACLU was established in 1985 to challenge unconstitutional laws and practices, and to counter the myths upon which many of these laws are based. The Project has become one of the nation's leading advocates for the rights of immigrants, refugees and non-citizens.

IMMIGRATION: MYTHS AND FACTS Myth: U.S. Borders are Out of Control

Fact: Much of the anti-immigrant sentiment in this country is based on the unfounded fear that illegal immigrants are pouring over our borders in unprecedented numbers. In fact, the vast majority of immigrants in our country have entered legally under the strict standards imposed by the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Act allows approximately 800,000 people to settle here each year as permanent residents including about 480,000 who are admitted to reunite with their spouses, children, parents and/or siblings; about 140,000 who are admitted to fill jobs for which the U.S. Department of Labor has determined no American workers are available; about 110,000 refugees who have proven their claims of political or religious persecution in their homelands; and about 55,000 who are admitted under a "diversity" lottery, begun in 1990, that mainly benefits young European and African immigrants.

It is impossible to determine with any precision how many immigrants take up residence in the U.S. each year without permission, but there is now evidence that the numbers used by anti -immigrant organizations and politicians have been greatly exaggerated. During his 1996 presidential bid, for example, Patrick Buchanan claimed that the undocumented Mexican population was growing by a million or more a year. But according to the 1997 report issued by the Binational Study on Migration and commissioned by the U.S. and Mexican governments, the annual average is closer to 105,000 Ð only one-tenth of Buchanan's figure. The total number of people from all countries who entered illegally or overstayed their visas in 1996 was estimated by the INS to be 275,000, again a fraction of Buchanan's claim, and less than one-tenth of one percent of the U.S. population.

Myth: Immigrants take jobs away from American Workers

Fact: Most economic experts who have studied the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment report that immigrants create more jobs than they fill. They do this by forming new businesses, raising the productivity of already established businesses, investing capital and spending dollars on consumer goods. A 1994 study by Ohio University researchers, for example, found "no statistically meaningful relationship between immigration and unemployment....[I]f there is any correlation, it would appear to be negative: higher immigration is associated with lower unemployment." Studies by the Rand Corporation, the Council of Economic Advisors, the National Research Council and the Urban Institute all came to the conclusion that immigrants do not have a negative effect on the earnings and the employment opportunities of native-born Americans.

Myth: Immigrants Drain our Social Services

Fact: The Urban Institute has concluded that "immigrants actually generate significantly more in taxes paid than they cost in services." This is because undocumented workers, despite their ineligibility for most federal benefits, frequently have Social Security and income taxes withheld from their paychecks. In fact, immigrants pay substantially more in taxes every year than they receive in welfare benefits.

As a result, one commentator has pointed out, "a senior citizen on Social Security who lives in rural Kentucky is indirectly being subsidized by an immigrant who washes dishes in a chic restaurant in Santa Monica." Another commentator recently proposed that the best solution to the Social Security crisis caused by the aging of the baby boomers is to encourage immigration in order to create "instant adults" who will begin working immediately and paying into the Social Security system.

TROUBLE AT THE BORDER

The INS' broad and virtually unchecked power to turn people back at the border has led to a long and shameful history of unjustified government violence against men, women and children whose only crime is attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico.

The violence is often unprovoked. Beatings, sexual assaults and even fatal shootings by U.S. Border Patrol agents against unarmed Mexican nationals are far too common. Juanita Gomez' experience was not unique. In 1993 this 22-year-old woman crossed the Mexico-Arizona border to shop on the U.S. side. She was stopped by a Border Patrol agent who abducted Gomez in his official vehicle and raped her. In 1994, 37-year-old Mario Fernandez was spotted by a Border Patrol agent near the Mexico-California border. He was handcuffed, thrown to the ground, kicked in the jaw, and then denied medical treatment for two days while in detention. He later required three operations to repair his badly damaged jaw which had become infected. These and many other incidents have prompted Human Rights Watch to call the border situation "one of the worst police abuse problems in the country."

The violence also usually goes unpunished. Abusive Border Patrol agents are rarely held accountable for their actions, and, fearing reprisals, few victims file complaints. When complaints are filed, they are often ignored, inadequately investigated, or simply abandoned.

The violence is inhumane. One recently adopted Border Patrol tactic, Operation Gatekeeper, seeks to deter migrants from traditional passage routes. Although some anti-immigration zealots extol Operation Gatekeeper's success at border control, the human toll has been very high: In the first ten months of 1997 alone, at least 72 people have died trying to traverse treacherous alternative passages over 5,000-foot Tecate mountains or through the 120-degree heat of the Imperial desert.

The ACLU and other human and immigrants' rights groups have long advocated greater government accountability as the only way to deter border violence and abuse.

THE RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS

In decisions spanning more than a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution's guarantees apply to every person within U.S. borders, including "aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful." On the other hand, the Court has said that when the federal government uses its broad powers to supervise immigration into this country, it can exercise those powers in ways that discriminate on the basis of "alienage." In other words, the government has the power to decide who to let into the country and under what circumstances. But once here, even undocumented immigrants have the right to freedom of speech and religion, the right to be treated fairly, the right to privacy, and the other fundamental rights U.S. citizens enjoy.

Since immigrants don't have the right to enter the U.S., those who are not here legally are subject to deportation. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has the authority to question "any person believed to be an alien as to his right to be in the United States." But in a 1903 case called Yamataya v. Fisher, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the INS could not deport someone without a hearing that meets constitutional due process standards. Since then, procedural rights for undocumented immigrants have evolved so that today, in spite of Congress' attempts to curtail these rights, most people facing deportation are entitled to:

• a hearing before an immigration judge and review, in most cases, by a federal court;
• representation by a lawyer (but not at government expense);
• reasonable notice of charges, and of a hearing's time and place;
• a reasonable opportunity to examine the evidence and the government's witnesses;
• competent interpretation for non-English speaking immigrants, and
• clear and convincing proof that the government's grounds for deportation are valid.

What's Wrong With "English Only" Laws?

"English Only" laws, which declare English to be the country's official language and bar government employees from providing non-English language assistance and services, are inconsistent with both the First Amendment right to communicate with or petition the government, and the right to equality. They are also unnecessary and sometimes even dangerous to both individuals and the public. Currently enforced in eighteen states, some "English Only" laws are written so broadly that they forbid non-English government services such as assistance to recipients of benefits, applications for drivers' licenses, and bilingual education.

Current "English Only" laws are based on the false premise that today's immigrants who come from Asian and Spanish-speaking countries will not learn English without government coercion. In fact, the vast majority of Asian and Latino immigrants are acquiring proficiency in English just as quickly, if not faster, than earlier generations of Italian, Russian and German immigrants. Moreover, only 4% of the U.S. population over the age of five does not speak English.

The problem is not that immigrants are unwilling to learn English, but that there are not enough available educational resources for them. Today, many thousands of immigrants throughout the country are on the waiting lists for adult English classes. English-only laws do nothing constructive to increase English proficiency, they simply discriminate against and punish those who have not yet learned English.

IN SEARCH OF ASYLUM

Every year, men, women and children come to our shores seeking safe haven from political and social persecution. The U.S. is bound by both international and domestic law to open its doors to those who have a "well-founded fear of persecution" on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Although hundreds of thousands of political refugees have been admitted into the U.S. since World War II, our government has too often been guided by political, rather than humanitarian, considerations and countless numbers of people have been returned to their countries of origin only to be jailed, tortured and even killed.

The politicization of the asylum process reached a peak during the Reagan years. During the 1980s, the government denied 97% of Salvadoran and 99% of Guatemalan asylum applications, in spite of the fact that there were civil wars raging in both countries. At the same time, the government routinely granted applications from people fleeing countries whose governments the Reagan Administration opposed, such as Nicaragua and Cuba. The ACLU and several religious and civil rights organizations challenged the discriminatory handling of asylum claims in a class action lawsuit. Eventually, the government agreed to give new asylum hearings to 240,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

In the early 1990's, after years of violent dictatorship followed by a short-lived period of democratic rule under Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians, fearing new tyranny, fled their country. In response, President Bush issued the so-called Kennebunkport Order, ordering the Coast Guard to forcibly return all Haitian refugees intercepted in international waters. More than 20,000 men, women and children were returned to Haiti, prompting one federal judge to accuse the U.S. Government of returning refugees "to the jaws of political persecution, terror, death and uncertainty when it has contracted not to do so."

The 1996 immigration and antiterrorism laws passed by Congress in 1996 were steps backwards for refugees. Under the immigration law, the challenge to the discriminatory treatment of Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees would have been impossible, because class action lawsuits are now banned. And for the first time in this country's history, the government can deport someone without any federal court review of a deportation order. The antiterrorism law allows the government to deport aliens based on evidence they cannot effectively challenge because it is secret. one federal court judge said of the practice of using secret evidence: "One would be hard pressed to design a procedure more likely to result in erroneous deprivations. . . . Secrecy is not congenial to truth-seeking."

Sources: United States/Crossing the Line: Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico Persist Amid Climate of Impunity. Report by Human Rights Watch/Americas, April 1995.

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‘So, are you an alien?’ What it was like to grow up as an undocumented immigrant

TODAY is editorially independent. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.  Learn more .

Daniela Pierre-Bravo is a bestselling author, speaker and MSNBC reporter for “Morning Joe.” In her new book, “The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Woman of Color,” she shares her personal story about being an undocumented immigrant from Chile and how she rose through the ranks in her career. This is an excerpt of the book, which came out Aug. 23.

Growing up, I did not belong. Not on paper, not in the system and not in my environment.

The word “undocumented” is more than a status; it’s a feeling. It’s a constant state of being, and it was always there with me. Am I enough? Am I worthy? I was not alone in this feeling, but in my case, there was supporting evidence that made it harder not to take those thoughts as factual. I lacked the very paperwork that validated my belonging in this country. I was in total limbo without a path forward. Whatever inadequacies I felt were compounded by my lack of status. So I built up a shell to protect me from the prejudice I encountered in my small town, and I learned to bury my voice — to accommodate, explain and appease. It was a coping mechanism that I absorbed early on, which quickly spilled over into areas of my life where I felt like I had to work hard to prove myself.

One of these experiences that stayed with me was when I met my then-boyfriend’s parents as a teen. No matter who you are, meeting a partner’s parents for the first time can be nerve-racking. I wanted to do my best to make a good first impression for many reasons. He had a big, close-knit family like mine, but his upbringing was vastly different from my own. He had grown up in the same town all his life and had conservative, well-educated parents who had gone to top-ranked schools. They were well off and well known in town, the sort of parents who were at every one of their kids’ games and recitals, and could comfortably clock out of their nine-to-five jobs to enjoy family meals. This was a stark contrast to my immigrant parents, who worked two or three shifts and came home, on a good day, by eight at night with a bucket of Lee’s chicken, which each kid would eat on their own schedule because our parents were too exhausted to impose rules about family mealtimes.

I was scheduled to meet my boyfriend’s family for dinner at one of the best restaurants in town. Blood rushed to my cheeks as my family dropped me off in our station wagon. I was late. My dad had fallen behind schedule, struggling to start the car engine on his way home from his factory job across town.

“Here is fine!” I blurted before we neared the restaurant’s front door, my mind swirling with the thought that this was the first impression I’d have to lead with.

“Good luck!” yelled my 12-year-old brother from the back seat through a devilish grin and a big cackle. Even at his age, he knew I was walking into a minefield. I rolled my eyes and hoped the loud creak of the old car door closing couldn’t be heard inside.

As I stepped into the Italian restaurant, I quickly spotted my boyfriend and his whole family on the left, already sitting at the table, and watched as all of their eyes turned my way. I walked toward them knowing I would be vetted, almost expecting that they already had some sort of preconceived judgment about my immigrant roots, but I figured if I played my cards right, they’d overlook the cultural and socioeconomic gaps between us.

I (expected) that they already had some sort of preconceived judgment about my immigrant roots, but I figured if I played my cards right, they’d overlook the cultural and socioeconomic gaps between us.

After apologizing profusely for being late, I took my seat and exchanged small talk over appetizers. With the main course, lasagna, came the usual softballs: “How is school going?” “What was it like growing up in Chile?” And I was batting like a champ, or so I thought. Until his mother threw the ultimate curveball.

“So, are you an alien? I mean ... do you have a green card?” Her eyes were locked on me as she fumbled through this question. And for an instant, I stopped breathing. The inquisition hit me like a pile of rocks. My thoughts reeled. What do I say? How can I answer this and still be in her good graces? Will they accept me if I tell them the truth?

“Well — I ... ”

I felt totally blindsided.

“Oh my God, Mom! No, she’s an illegal alien!” offered one of my boyfriend’s brothers sarcastically, as if coming to my rescue.

“What a question!” followed his father, as everyone joined in and laughed it all off, delighting themselves in the bluntness of the question that so obviously did not need to be answered.

As I smiled along with them, playing into their assumption that I was not undocumented, a strange out-of-body sensation came over me, as if I were two separate people digesting my environment. The confident version of me pretended that this outright biased comment had little to no effect on the expertly disguised other version of me, who was screaming at me in my mind to run away before I got caught.

When I came back from what felt like a mental blackout, I found the confident person in me take over. Keep calm. I explained my immigration status by lying to appease them, telling them that my paperwork was in process or something. I fought every inch of my gut and soul from disclosing the truth. As I scrambled to find a way to ease their doubts about my legal status, I was unintentionally feeding into their bias and also internalizing it. It was one of the first times I remember feeling deep shame. Even so, I self-soothed, conditioning my body and words to deflect this uncomfortable feeling of inadequacy, and carried on.

In my mind, my boyfriend’s mother’s message was clear: You don’t belong. It felt like she had already made up her mind before even taking the chance to get to know me. I’m sure you can relate on some level, especially if, like me, you grew up in a community where you stuck out like a sore thumb. I began to believe that I needed to adapt by appeasing whatever doubts, worries or hesitancies might come up about me and my background. After all, these were good, community-and family-oriented, churchgoing people. It must not be them, I told myself. It’s me. I needed to work harder to assimilate and earn their trust.

This uncomfortable dinner situation was the first time I felt the threat of what being “the other” meant to a group in which family, friends and acquaintances, for the most part, all looked the same. Those hegemonic communities have grown used to the consistency that comes from the lack of diversity within their close circles. I can imagine people’s skin crawled in my town at the thought that I might be “illegal,” but I needed more years to process and fully understand how their bias likely came from simple lack of exposure to someone different from them.

Of course people are unfamiliar with things they haven’t encountered before, but to wholeheartedly judge, dismiss or reject, well, that’s bias in a nutshell, if not outright bigotry. It’s the fear of the unknown. It may have helped ease my stress if I had understood this back then, but all I knew was that I was the odd one out, someone they couldn’t quite put their finger on, and deep down inside, that dissonance probably scared them. This made me harbor shame about my very identity. I didn’t have anyone like me in my corner to encourage me or teach me how to handle that emotion. My family was likely dealing with their own repressed emotions, and were also much too worried about getting food on our table to think about feelings .

That relationship was short-lived (shocker, I know). But this memory remained in my subconscious for years, rearing its ugly head on other occasions where I faced my socioeconomic limits when trying to make it into rooms where I felt like I didn’t belong. You are illegal! it yelled at me, making me feel like a total fraud.

What I didn’t know back then was that I was not “illegal”; I was undocumented. I also didn’t know that calling me or anyone in my circumstance an “alien” carried an enormous psychological weight. Currently, there is legislation introduced in Congress that would remove the word “alien” from U.S. immigration laws and replace it with “noncitizen.” Immigration activists, legal scholars and others have taken issue with the term “alien,” saying it downplays the importance of the role immigrants have had historically in the United States, from the European immigrants who colonized it to the enslaved Africans who were forced to immigrate against their will. However you want to look at it, the term holds one unchallengeable message for those on the receiving end: that we are foreign, outsiders, other . We feel the force of its psychological weight. That one measly word dangled over us has the power to make us question ourselves, our identities and our place in the world. This epithet translates into a rejection that tells us that our inherent being is not good enough, is not worthy, does not and will never belong. We exist “illegally” in places where we contribute, build communities, volunteer in religious spaces and pay taxes for welfare and health care that we ourselves cannot use. “Illegals” like us shouldn’t exist ... yet we do.

Excerpted from “The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Woman of Color” by Daniela Pierre-Bravo. Copyright © 2022 by Daniela Pierre-Bravo. Reprinted with permission of Legacy Lit. All rights reserved.

Daniela Pierre-Bravo is a bestselling author, speaker and MSNBC reporter for "Morning Joe." She is a contributor and producer for NBC’s “Know Your Value” platform, coauthor of "Earn It!" and most recently the author of her first solo book “The Other,” which came out in August 2022. A former Cosmopolitan magazine columnist, Pierre-Bravo has written on career advice, mental health and financial wellness with an emphasis on women of color.

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The Economic Benefits of Extending Permanent Legal Status to Unauthorized Immigrants

By Chair Cecilia Rouse, Lisa Barrow, Kevin Rinz, and Evan Soltas

The United States is often described as a nation of immigrants. With the exception of Native Americans, the vast majority of Americans are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants or enslaved people. This diversity has been celebrated for its contributions to American culture through cuisine, language, and the arts, among many other influences.

Immigrants also make an important contribution to the U.S. economy. Most directly, immigration increases potential economic output by increasing the size of the labor force. Immigrants also contribute to increasing productivity. Economists Gaetano Basso and Giovanni Peri find that immigrants are more mobile than natives in response to local economic conditions, perhaps because they have fewer long-standing familial and community ties, helping labor markets to function more efficiently. Economists Jennifer Hunt and Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle have also shown that immigrants boost innovation, a key factor in generating improvements in living standards. Specifically, they find that a 1 percentage point increase in the population share of immigrant college graduates increases patents per capita by 9 percent to 18 percent .

While most immigrants residing in the United States are legally authorized to live and work here, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates the population of unauthorized immigrants to be roughly 11.4 million as of 2018. This estimate and those used by researchers include beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), even though both groups have legal authorization to live and work in the United States on a temporary basis. [1] This diverse population also includes other individuals who either entered without passing through immigration (unauthorized entry), or legally came to the United States on a temporary basis and then overstayed their visa. [2] Most of these individuals may not legally work or receive safety-net benefits—or only can under substantial restrictions.

This blog discusses the economics of legalizing unauthorized immigrants. Some critics claim that legalizing unauthorized immigrants, as proposed by the Build Back Better framework, could be costly because they would become eligible for additional social insurance benefits such as Medicaid. However, granting permanent legal status would also likely raise tax revenues, increase productivity, and have additional benefits for the children of these immigrants, generating substantial economic value for the country.  

Permanent legal status is likely to increase the effective labor supply of unauthorized immigrants.

About 73 percent of unauthorized-immigrant adults ages 18 to 65 were employed in any given year from 2014 to 2019, roughly equal to the employment rates of non-citizen legal residents and U.S. citizens. [3] Permanent legal status would likely allow these workers to be more productive, generating gains that could be realized through a variety of channels.

Critically, permanent legal status would allow these currently unauthorized immigrants to pursue and accept jobs for which their skills are well-suited, rather than being restricted to particular sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, construction, and leisure and hospitality, where employers often do not insist on legal status and where wages are lower on average. For example, around one-half of workers in the U.S. dairy industry—which in 2018 paid between $11 and $13 an hour for general labor—are immigrants, most of whom are thought to be unauthorized. [4] Without legal status, unauthorized immigrants have limited opportunities for job mobility, a key channel by which other workers find better, more productive employment matches over their careers.

Comparisons between the earnings of authorized and unauthorized immigrants suggest that limited job opportunities cause talent to be misallocated, reducing productivity. Unauthorized-immigrant workers have been estimated to earn about 40 percent less per hour than native-born workers and about 35 percent less per hour than legal immigrants. A large part of these gaps can be explained by differences in average skills as measured by educational attainment; however, after adjusting for these and other demographic differences, this research continues to find a significant “ wage penalty ” for unauthorized workers ranging from 4 percent to 24 percent of their hourly wage. Further, we estimate that there is no wage penalty for unauthorized-immigrant workers relative to similar legal immigrants within the same occupation and industry, which suggests the penalty arises from being confined to low-paying jobs. [5]

In addition to employment opportunities, evidence from prior legalizations in the United States and in other countries suggests that legalization also encourages immigrants to improve their language skills, induces them to complete additional education and training, and improves their health outcomes, all of which make them more productive members of society. For example, evidence from Germany finds that faster access to citizenship led immigrant women to improve their language skills in addition to increasing their labor force attachment. In a study of U.S. teenagers born to the same immigrant families—but whose legal status varies due to the countries in which they were born—the unauthorized-immigrant teenagers were about 2.6 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in school. In addition, evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 ( IRCA ) and DACA shows these reforms increased schooling for previously-unauthorized immigrants. Finally, a recent economic study also suggests that DACA-recipients experienced improved physical and mental health, which contributes to increased productivity.

In a market economy, employees’ productivity influences their pay. As a result, productivity improvements—through better job matches, investments in skills, and increases in physical and mental health—should be reflected in increased wages among the legalized immigrants. Indeed, the research evidence supports this hypothesis. For example, research finds that the wages of DACA-eligible Dreamers rose 4 to 5 percent by 2016 relative to those not eligible. [6] Another study concludes that the DACA-related gains in earnings for unauthorized workers were largest among the lowest paid workers. These results signify that even though these unauthorized immigrants may currently be working in the United States, providing them with legal permanent status would increase their effective labor supply, that is, the work their greater productivity enables them to do. Importantly, this increase in productivity is foundational for improving U.S. economic growth.

Given that providing legal status to unauthorized immigrants would increase their effective labor supply, critics of legalization argue there could be adverse labor market consequences for native and other immigrant workers. While there is not a large economics literature on the labor market effects of legalization on other workers, in a well-cited National Academies report on the economic and fiscal impact of immigration, a distinguished group of experts concludes that in the longer run, the effect of immigration on wages overall is very small. [7]

Permanent legal status would likely have implications for costs and revenues for the Federal government.

While granting permanent legal status to unauthorized immigrants would likely boost economic growth, some are concerned about the price tag, given that an increased number of legal immigrants could enroll in, and raise costs of, social benefit programs. However, some of this increased cost would likely be offset by higher tax contributions. [8]

Consider first the potential increase in costs to the Federal government associated with receipt of social benefits. Legal status may make undocumented immigrants more comfortable using Federal benefits for which they are already eligible , such as emergency health services under Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). In addition, newly-legalized immigrants could take up social benefits for which they were previously ineligible due to their unauthorized status. Based on benefit use among demographically-similar, non-citizen legal immigrants, this increase in take-up could be significant. For example, many of these immigrants could become fully eligible for Medicaid. [9] Finally, granting legal status could also increase benefit take-up among citizen or authorized-immigrant relatives of undocumented immigrants; several studies find that the threat of an undocumented relative being deported discouraged benefit take-up by citizen members of the same household, even though those citizens are eligible for benefits and cannot be deported.  

However, much of the direct fiscal cost of these public benefits is likely to be repaid due to increased tax contributions from the immigrants, and, in the long run, by positive fiscal contributions from their children. Anyone working in the United States is supposed to be paying taxes; however, Federal income tax compliance rates for unauthorized immigrants are unknown. Several government agencies and nongovernmental organizations estimate rates between 50 and 75 percent . By comparison, tax compliance rates on ordinary wage income are close to 100 percent for the U.S. population as a whole, according to the U.S. Treasury Department .

Shifts from the informal to the formal sector that are expected to result from legal status would likely increase tax compliance rates. Indeed, after the passage of IRCA, researchers found that income tax compliance rates of previously-unauthorized immigrants in California became comparable to other residents. Combined with the wage gains, gross tax revenues would increase. Moreover, undocumented immigrants are disproportionately of prime-working age (see Figure 1) and relatively younger than prime-age U.S. citizens. Therefore, they are likely to have many working years during which they will be paying these higher payroll and income taxes if they are legalized.

Finally, many children of unauthorized immigrants grow up in households below the Federal poverty level because their parents cannot secure higher-paying work due to their immigration status. Growing up poor can be harmful for child development, and providing public health insurance and nutrition assistance has been shown to improve the health of immigrant children. In general, the direct fiscal cost of public assistance for low-income children is thought to be substantially or fully offset in the long run. The costs are offset by increases in tax revenues and reductions in spending on government programs when these children grow up to become higher-earning adults than they would have had they not received assistance. [10]

Immigrants have made innumerable contributions to American business and society. However, current law confines millions of them to a life in the shadows, without the rights to be fully economically engaged or have access to foundational social protections. Such treatment inflicts  harms on unauthorized immigrants themselves and their families— many of which include U.S. citizens and non-citizen legal residents—as well as to the broader economy.

Though some argue that increased take-up of social programs would generate a substantial fiscal cost to the government, the productivity of the newly-legalized would likely increase, which would benefit all in the United States by expanding economic output. Further, the ensuing increase in wages and compliance with tax requirements would increase their contributions to public sector finances, and their children would benefit as well. Allowing currently unauthorized workers to engage fully in the labor force would not only benefit the immigrants and their families, but society as a whole. 

[1] DHS estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population are calculated as the residual from subtracting the legally-resident, foreign-born population from the total foreign-born population. Dreamers (individuals born between 1981 and 2012 brought to the United States as children) who applied to and were accepted into the DACA program can legally work and reside in the United States, but only for two years, at which point they must apply to renew their status; the Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that the Trump Administration could not end the program, but the U.S. District Court in Southern Texas ruled in July 2021 that the program is not lawful. While those currently in the DACA program are still protected and can reapply, new applicants are not accepted, and the case is making its way through the Federal courts. TPS is granted only until resolution of the conditions in a recipient’s country of origin that make it difficult or unsafe to return. 

[2] Unauthorized immigrants do not include people who have been granted asylum or refugee status or nonimmigrant residents, such as students and temporary workers, who have been granted permission to study or work in the United States for a limited period of time and for a specific purpose.

[3] CEA analysis of Current Population Survey microdata from 2014 to 2019.

[4] The average hourly wage in the United States in 2020 was about $27 an hour.

[5] Based on CEA analysis of Current Population Survey microdata from 2014 to 2019.

[6] Evidence from the wage impacts of naturalization in the United States and other countries ; smaller extensions of work authorization to particular groups of unauthorized immigrants, such as those aided by the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992; and reforms that have restricted employment options for unauthorized workers, also suggest that granting legal status would improve labor market outcomes of unauthorized workers.

[7] See also David Card’s Richard T. Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association in which he argues that immigrants have had at most small impacts on wage inequality among natives.

[8] We note that the fiscal impacts of providing legal permanent status to existing unauthorized immigrants likely differ from prior analyses of the fiscal impacts of immigration generally, as unauthorized immigrants are already in the country, and many currently work, pay taxes, and receive some forms of government benefits. This existing relationship with the government makes it necessary to estimate how their rates of tax compliance and take-up of benefits would change if they gained legal status. Such calculations are not straightforward and require important assumptions, some with scarce relevant data and evidence that could inform them.

[9] Unauthorized immigrants who entered the United States after August 22, 1996—the date Federal welfare reforms were signed into law—would generally be eligible only after a waiting period of five years of legal residence for several benefits, including non-emergency health services under Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

[10] At present the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) does not account for any long-run fiscal return to public benefit programs, suggesting that current approaches to “scoring” the fiscal impacts of legal status are likely to overstate their true fiscal cost.

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Book Review: The Undocumented Americans

“I asked almost everyone I interviewed…about their regrets, but…[t]hat’s not what we’ll remember when we have to leave, by choice, force, or casket.” [1]

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio came to the United States without documentation at age 5, attended Harvard University, pursued her PhD at Yale, and wrote for major newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times and The Atlantic. [2] In March 2020, Villavicencio published The Undocumented Americans to write “the full story” of what life is like for undocumented people in the U.S. [3] Villavicencio wove real-life narratives of undocumented Americans into six essay-like chapters to capture the complex, heavy, and enormously human account of one of the most politicized groups in the country. The novel implicitly addressed many legal challenges the U.S. imposes on immigrants, but the general implications of immigration law set the backdrop for many of the struggles addressed within her book.

This review aims to remind political and legal professionals that the law is not only text on a page or a case on a docket. The law controls the treatment of human beings. This article will only explore “Chapter One: Staten Island” due to the amount of content packed within it. Further, this article will discuss the difficulties of legal immigration into the United States and then contemplate one of the several jobs undocumented people are forced into due to their status: day laboring.

The So-Called “American Dream”

America’s promises of freedom and opportunities make the country a beacon to those seeking those qualities in a home. Villavicencio begins her book by explaining the educational and financial opportunities that led her and her parents to America. [4] “[W]e’ve talked very little about [my parents’] decision to choose New York, or even the United States, as a destination. It’s not that I haven’t asked…[i]t’s that the answer isn’t as morally satisfying as most people’s are…” [5] For many other people Villavicencio interviewed, the reason to come to America was a financial one as well. [6] However, the process of obtaining a visa in the current landscape of immigration procedure is expensive, time-consuming, and complex. [7]

There are three routes for temporary and permanent immigration: (1) employment, (2) familial reunification, or (3) humanitarian. [8] Within each of these categories, there are strict rules that restrict the number of visas and green cards allocated annually per country and establish several factors that could disqualify a migrant from entering lawfully. [9] For example, no single country can account for more than seven percent of all green cards issued annually. [10] These inequitable regulations on immigration created long wait times to obtain certain visas depending on the time of year and the number of applications submitted to the Department of State. [11] As of February 2022, applicants for permanent residence from India with at least one bachelor’s degree and five years of postgraduate experience or a master’s degree will wait another nine years before obtaining a visa. [12] Other major challenges for applicants are language and cost. [13] Ultimately, there is no legal avenue for several people and families who do not fit squarely into one of the narrow boxes set out by the current Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”).

Even if an immigrant qualifies for a visa, the application could be denied due to several “inadmissibility grounds.” [14] Examples of these grounds include, but are not limited to, not obtaining a labor certification from an employer prior to entry (if entering for employment purposes), entering the United States without inspection, and the possibility that a migrant will become a “public charge” to the United States. [15] During 2019 and 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) published new, stricter regulations on reviewing whether an immigrant will become a public charge. [16] The “final rule” took a person’s likelihood to rely on certain health or human services to indicate they would become public charges, thus rendering their application inadmissible. [17] The Biden Administration rescinded this rule in 2021, but the law created a “chilling effect,” which stopped many immigrants from requesting public benefits, like Medicaid, fearing it would affect their immigration status. [18]

One population of migrants that are particularly affected by the public charge inadmissibility ground are those seeking employment opportunities. Immigration officials usually rely on “affidavits of support” from sponsors in the U.S. to make their determination. [19] These affidavits are contracts where the sponsor agrees to financial aid and support the intending immigrant. [20] The process for an employer to sponsor a migrant is costly for the employer, especially if the employer must sign an affidavit of support. Ultimately, low-income people seeking entrance to the U.S. are particularly affected by the visa and review process. Migrants then pursue entrance to the U.S. in other ways.

The Dangerous Effects of Complex, Expensive Immigration Laws

“I ask Julián what he’d like readers to know about him, and he immediately says, ‘Tell them I crossed the desert four times to see my children.’” [21] Villavicencio spends numerous pages of the first chapter addressing the dangers of crossing the desert. Julián described that his skin felt so cold during the desert nights that he was afraid it would “shatter like hard candy.” [22] Then, the day would get so hot “he thought demons had possessed him.” [23] Julián had to pay a “coyote” (people smuggler) to lead him through the desert each time he crossed the border. [24] Coyotes are known to be unforgiving in their treatment of those they lead through the desert. [25] Julián spoke about how the coyotes are always drunk and drugged and will leave people behind. [26] Additionally, migrants must worry about the cost of coyotes. About a decade ago, Mexican immigrants would pay between $1,000 and $4,000 to cross the border on foot. [27] The fee for Central American immigrants was between $7,000 and $10,000. [28] Currently, DHS is estimating coyotes’ costs are about 2 to 3 times those numbers. [29] In 2021, the International Organization for Migration (“IOM”) reported over 650 people died while attempting to cross the border. [30] This is the highest reported number of deaths since the IOM began reporting these statistics. [31]

Undocumented people face many challenges in the US, including a lack of stability and discrimination. One central theme of the first chapter of The Undocumented American is the mistreatment of undocumented people. First, the author mentions the systematic issues surrounding undocumented people such as racism and classism. One very powerful quote reads:

…I have heard nice people try to be respectful about describing undocumented people [by calling us] “undocumented workers” as a euphemism, as if there was something uncouth about being just an undocumented person standing with your hands clasped together…I almost wish they’d call us something rude…because that’s acknowledging something about us beyond our usefulness…to describe all of us…as workers in order to make us palatable, my god. [32]

Villavicencio also addresses the negative treatment of Mexicans and Latine people based on nothing but their skin tone. Once, Villavicencio sat silently on the bus with an English book in hand. A woman rudely directed a comment to Villavicencio that she wished “these people” would learn English. [33] Other people interviewed for this novel also recalled negative treatment based on their English-speaking abilities. Julián recollected many times when employers would scream and curse at him because he did not understand English. [34]

Additionally, Julián, as well as Joaquin, reflect on how employers treated them compared to documented people at work. Joaquin worked for a boat company when planes crashed into the World Trade Center. [35] Joaquin helped take volunteers in and out of Ground Zero for two weeks on the boats. [36] Suddenly, his employer fired him because the employer was afraid of a fine from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) for hiring Joaquin. [37] About eleven years later, Joaquin again helped the city when Hurricane Sandy flooded Staten Island. [38] He, among many day laborers, volunteered to do the clean up the government did not want to do and did not receive adequate compensation for it. [39] For example, many people took free labor and failed to provide the workers with essential tools for the clean-up, meaning the workers had to bring their own. [40] Ultimately, the effect of complex immigration regulation results in harmful practices against undocumented people through several layers of everyday life.

Legal Reform and Community Organizing

Ultimately, Villavicencio artfully weaves the stories of a few people to speak on several complex and interwoven issues facing a vibrant community of people. In addition to systematic and institutional discrimination people face when coming to the U.S., Villavicencio also highlights the good. Another major theme that radiates through the first chapter of The Undocumented American is the power of organizing. Villavicencio spent the entirety of the first chapter in Staten Island and met many of the people she interviewed at Colectiva Por Fin (“Colectiva”). Colectiva was created in 1997 as a small nonprofit “that provided practical advocacy, representation, and training for day laborers and the immigrant community at large.” [41] Villavicencio focuses on day laborers because many are immigrants who are susceptible to entering into abusive relationships with employers. [42] Through the chapter, Villavicencio reveals how Colectiva successfully aided in negotiations, safety training, and networking tricks to help the day laborers create a safe and mutually beneficial client base. [43] Colectiva exemplifies the benefits of community organization and participation. However, organizing is a Band-Aid to a large-scale problem that is deeply rooted in racism and xenophobia codified by law. [44]

One way to support undocumented people is to utilize state and local governments to protect undocumented people from federal immigration policy. [45] There are sovereign decisions a state or local municipality can make to aid their undocumented communities, such as extending benefits to all local residents. [46] For example, some states already extended medical insurance for children regardless of immigration status. [47] Some jurisdictions also created ways for undocumented immigrants to obtain IDs such as driver’s licenses and municipal IDs to provide access to places such as hospitals and banks. [48]

A second, larger step, to aiding undocumented people is through a comprehensive reform of the governing INA. The current framework of the INA was enacted 70 years ago. [49] Some sections, like the criminalization of entry and re-entry, have not been amended since its passing. [50] Additionally, other sections, such as quotas and limitations on immigration entrance, have not been amended since 1990. [51] Immigration law is one that needs continuous updating and reforming due to population increase, societal notions, and foreign affairs. [52] However, the legislature failed to provide this type of adjustment and ultimately the INA contemporarily does not reflect the interests of American immigration and actively harms migrants seeking to reside in the U.S. Ultimately, these large-scale provisions must be addressed in the legislature.

When Donald Trump was elected President, a member of AmeriCorps, who volunteered at Colectiva Pro Fin, gave a long-winded speech to the day laborers there. [53] He mentioned that Americans would come to their rescue if things got worse. [54] However, that did not ring true to the translator in the room, Santiago. [55] Ultimately, Santiago’s faith was no longer in the American people and their treatment of the immigrant community. [56] He said, “[u]nless these Americans are lawyers or federal judges, I don’t see how [Americans will come to their rescue].” [57] The Undocumented Americans subtly nudges at the importance of legislative and legal reform in immigration law. Though the novel, and this blog post, did not thoroughly address legal doctrine or jurisprudence, Villavicencio reminds Americans what the law can give and what it can take away. Her novel calls for change; change that, in part, must be created by current and future legal professionals and politicians.

• Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans 172 (2020). ↑
• Id. at xiv-6. ↑
• Id . at xv. ↑
• Id . at 3-4. ↑
• Id . at 4. ↑
• Id . at 16-20. (Villavicencio interviewed a man she dubbed “Julián” who came to the United States to help support his family that remained in Mexico. He hoped he could make enough money in the United States where he could return to Mexico with them, but his marriage fell apart, as many do “when divided by a border”). ↑
• ET Online, The Costs of Immigrating to United States , The Economic Times (May 28, 2021) https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/migrate/the-costs-of-immigrating-to-the-united-states/articleshow/82966455.cms. See also How the United States Immigration System Works , American Immigration Council, (Sep. 14, 2021) https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/how-united-states-immigration-system-works. ↑
• Why Don’t Immigrants Apply for Citizenship? , American Immigration Council, (Oct. 7, 2021) https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/why_dont_immigrants_apply_for_citizenship_0.pdf. ↑
• See generally 8 U.S.C. § 1153; 8 U.S.C. § 1152. See also Ilona Bray, What’s the Difference Between a Visa and a Green Card? , Nolo (last visited Feb. 20, 2021) https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/fiance-marriage-visa-book/chapter1-1.html (explaining that a visa is for temporary immigration called “nonimmigration”, and green cards are for immigrants whose intent is to remain in the United States permanently). ↑
• 8 U.S.C § 1152. ↑
• U.S. Dep’t of State Visa Bulletin, Vol. X, No. 62 (Feb. 2022). ↑
• Supra note 7. ↑
• See generally 8 U.S.C. § 1182. ↑
• 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(5)(A)(i); 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(6)(A)(i); 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(4)(A). ↑
• Gabriel R. Sanchez, It’s Time for the Biden Administration to Let Immigrant Know About the Public Charge Rule Change Brookings (Jan. 19, 2022) https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/01/19/its-time-for-the-biden-administration-to-let-immigrants-know-about-the-public-charge-rule-change/. ↑
• Id . (conveying, through a survey conducted in 2021, that nearly half of families who needed financial assistance for COVID-19 complications did not apply for assistance due to concerns over how doing so could impact their immigration status). ↑
• 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(4)(B)(ii). ↑
• Affidavit of Support , U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (last visited Feb. 20, 2022) https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/affidavit-of-support. ↑
• Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans 18 (2020). ↑
• Paolo Campana, ARTICLE: Human Smuggling: Structure and Mechanisms , 49 Crime & Just. 471 (2020). ↑
• Alex Nowrasteh, The Conservative Case for Immigration Tariffs: A Market-Based, Humane Approach to Solving Illegal Immigration , Competitive Enterprise Institute (Feb. 7, 2012) http://cei.org/sites/default/files/Alex%20Nowrasteh%20-%20The%20Conservative%20Case%20for%20Immigration%20Tariffs.pdf. ↑
• Priscilla Alvarez , At Least 650 Migrants Died Crossing the US-Mexico Border, the Most Since 2014, International Agency Says , CNN (December 9, 2021). ↑
• Id . See also Eileen Sullivan, A Rise in Deadly Border Patrol Chases Renews Concerns About Accountability , New York Times (Jan. 9, 2022) (addressing the increase in immigrant death and injuries from high-speed chases by the United States Border Control at the U.S.-Mexico border. Border Control recorded more than 700 “use of force” incidents in the 2021 fiscal year.). ↑
• Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans 12-13 (2020). ↑
• Id . at 18. ↑
• Id . at 16. ↑
• Id . at 22. ↑
• Id . at 23. ↑
• Id . at 27. ↑
• Id . at 11. ↑
• See generally United States v. Chae Chin Ping (“The Chinese Exclusion Act”), 130 U.S. 581 (1889) (the Court affirmed Congress had the power to create immigration statutes even when they conflicted with international treaties and explicitly excludes Chinese people from immigration processes); Quota Act of 1921, Pub. L. No. 67-5, ch. 8, § 2, 42 Stat. 5 (where Congress explicitly restricted immigration through quotas based on national origin and race); Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America 50 (2004) (specifically addresses the racist and classist treatment of Latino migrants in the U.S.). ↑
• Jennifer J. Lee, ESSAY: Redefining the Legality of Undocumented Work , 106 Calif. L. Rev. 1617 (2018). ↑
• Id . 1631. ↑
• Id . at 1631-1632. See generally 42 CFR 457.1-457.1285 (“State Children’s Health Insurance Program”). ↑
• Id . at 1633. ↑
• See generally 8 U.S.C. ↑
• Mary Giovagnoli, Overhauling Immigration Law: A Brief History and Basic Principles of Reform , Immigration Policy Center (Feb. 2013) https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/perspectivescirprimerwe111213.pdf. ↑
• Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans 14 (2020). ↑
• Id . at 15. ↑

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To undocumented people like me, a few pieces of paper are the difference between stability and crisis.

Updated at 5:50 p.m. ET on July 6, 2021

T he last time a Democrat lived in the White House, I was nearly detained outside of its gates. It should have been obvious to me, an undocumented immigrant, that giving my blank passport to a Secret Service agent could get me in trouble.

But I, along with a classmate, had been asked to be there for a meeting about college access hosted by first lady Michelle Obama’s higher-education initiative, and my security form had cleared the night before. And this was America, where immigrants supposedly could do such things as become senators and secretaries of state, and get invited to meetings at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, within the White House complex.

Predictably, the Secret Service agent told me that I was not on the list and that I should reach out to my “point of contact” inside. “I’ll catch up with you,” I told my friend, knowing that I wouldn’t. After about an hour of waiting, one of the hosts appeared, and told me that he was so sorry and that he would call me later. “You didn’t tell me you were undocumented!” he said, stunned, over the phone.

I took my burgundy Venezuelan passport and walked away, breathing in the peculiar blend of hope for Hillary Clinton and trepidation about Donald Trump that already filled the D.C. air in March 2016. The Secret Service that protected the man who lived in the White House—who often used his ancestors’ immigrant stories to wax poetic about this country—could have just as easily sent me to detention that day.

The current White House occupant also claims to be on immigrants’ side, decrying in his inaugural address the “racism, nativism, fear, and demonization” that have “long torn us apart.” The presidency of Joe Biden has brought, as promised, a clean break from some of Trump’s pernicious policies, such as the travel ban and the assault on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. On his first day in office, Biden sent an immigration bill to Congress that expanded temporary status protections and provided a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. The House of Representatives subsequently passed a pair of narrower bills that would protect about 2.5 million Dreamers, as well as farmworkers.

The real bargaining over our lives, in the Senate, is yet to come. As groundbreaking as Biden’s sweeping immigration-reform proposal looks, I have seen bills like it get killed in the Senate, revived as amendments to some military-spending bill, then killed again, more times than I can count. Even if immigration relief efforts are broken up piece by piece, which some have suggested Biden is open to doing , each morsel that does get through Congress will likely come with the bitter pill of increased deportations or border militarization. And, in the meantime, the Biden administration continues housing unaccompanied migrant children in border facilities and deporting individuals under Title 42, a public-health law.

Adam Serwer: The sinister logic of Trump’s immigration freeze

The end of the Trump presidency may create the impression that America’s immigration cruelty is a thing of the past. In truth, those of us who were undocumented before Trump know the inhumanity of that precarious normalcy.

T o immigrants, papers are everything. They can also mean nothing.

For how often my community gets called “undocumented,” perhaps no one in this country possesses more documents, or clings to them more fiercely to prove their existence, than we do. Practically every immigrant family in this country has a thick folder padded with their most valued documents—some put them in a safe box; others make virtual copies that they upload to encrypted cloud servers. Even vaccination charts or a spelling-bee certificate can prove something. I keep my papers in a yellow manila envelope.

For most of the pandemic, the folded-up piece of paper that allows me to board a plane and travel domestically resided in the inside pocket of a green coat I bought in college. That paper is a press release from the State Department, on which I conveniently highlighted the sentence that keeps an immigration agent at an airport from whisking me away: “Venezuelan passport holders who have been issued a passport extension will have the validity period extended by five years from the expiration date.”

Most Venezuelans who live in the United States have not been able to get a new passport since the Maduro regime stopped issuing them to those living abroad in 2017 (though extensions were possible), and this press release was, until recently, the only thing that kept undocumented Venezuelans from being rendered functional exiles without a country.

When I fly to see family, I tuck this press release, along with my boarding pass, into my passport, as if to say, “I know it’s expired. It’s all I have.” I hand this apology to the TSA agent, who decides whether to ask about my immigration status, or, as usually happens, wave me through.

Recently, I arrived at Reagan National Airport for my first flight since the pandemic began. I began to worry as soon as I turned a corner and saw that the TSA line was empty; behind plexiglass was a woman who had the power to decide whether I would get to see my family. Noticing that my passport had expired, she asked whether I had an extension. I awkwardly unfolded the press release, my voice shaking as I tried to explain State Department policy over her evident frustration. She seemed to study every comma. Finally she said, “Let me see your face.” My two masks chafed my ears as I pulled them down. She slid the paper and the passport back to me in silence, and I somehow got out a relieved “Have a good one,” before rushing to the conveyor belts.

Most of my other papers—bank statements, school transcripts, a copy of my birth certificate—are in the manila envelope. Even papers with no legal value at all are beloved, such as the birthday card I got from a scholarship foundation years ago, or the expired Capitol Hill press pass from my days as a news intern.

But for all the papers I could produce to show my contributions, none of them could secure a stable life. As anyone who has tried to come to the United States knows, its immigration system is arbitrary and often contradictory; being “legal” or “documented” depends not on the number of papers you possess, but on which ones you have. The Obama administration, when creating DACA, required applicants to have lived in the United States since June 15, 2007, to qualify; I arrived from Venezuela in 2011, so DACA did nothing for me. I could not be employed; could not legally drive in Florida, where I lived; and could not apply for federal or state financial aid to attend college. There’s no apparent justification for this date. I remember watching President Barack Obama announce on television in November 2014, around the time that I was applying to college, that he would expand DACA—and that immigrants could apply if they had lived here since January 1, 2010. I had missed that cutoff, again, by a little over a year. I cried.

From the April 2019 issue: If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will

With DACA out of reach, I believed that I had three options to obtain legal status, none of them viable. If I were to be the victim of certain crimes, such as sexual assault or human trafficking, I could opt for a U visa. (Quite obviously, I did not want to be the victim of such a crime, nor was it up to me anyway.) Alternatively, if the U.S. government deemed the crisis in Venezuela “bad enough,” I could qualify for temporary forms of relief such as Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure. Or there was always the possibility of marrying a U.S. citizen. This is doubtless the most pragmatic approach, and one that many immigrants successfully take. As the child of separated parents, though, I was wary—terrified, honestly—of hinging my future on the unpredictable whims of a partner.

I suppose that waiting for a government response that may never come is choosing a more perverse kind of ghosting. Every visa program forces immigrants to fit into arbitrary but neatly delineated categories. Years of bipartisan collaboration have spawned a byzantine system that assigns such great weight to something so weightless as paper, betraying any understanding of the reasons people migrate or become undocumented. Inaction had already begotten this structure before Trump came to power.

I landed in Miami on July 3, 2011, when I was 14 years old, without knowing that I would stay. That was the summer when Mitt Romney launched his presidential run, Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder, and Janet Napolitano, then Obama’s secretary of homeland security, announced that the administration would shift its deportation priorities to target criminals and people who otherwise posed a threat to national security or public safety. The journalist Jose Antonio Vargas had just come out as undocumented in a New York Times Magazine feature two Wednesdays before I arrived.

My father had moved to Orlando, Florida, with his wife and their two children two years earlier, fleeing death threats and crime in Venezuela. He had been able to secure legal status through a business visa. I saw no future for myself in Venezuela, where I’d been living with my mother, so, during my visit, I told my father that I wanted to go to college in the United States. He took me to meet a family friend whose son was a student at Florida State University at the time, and I remember his exact advice: “Now would be the best time to stay.” I was about to start my freshman year of high school. I asked my father to call my mother—I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her son was not coming back home. Because of a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees access to public education to all children, regardless of immigrant status, I started high school in Florida that August, gaining legal status under my father’s visa as a family member.

Otherwise, this country’s laws soon dashed our hopes. When my father tried to apply for green cards, the Department of Homeland Security determined that his role as the owner of his cellphone business was too “operational” and not sufficiently “managerial.” The application was denied. He grew desperate to deliver on a promise he had made to himself when he left Venezuela: that he would make sure we had a future.

Caitlin Dickerson: America’s immigration amnesia

Later that year, my father met a DHS agent. She spoke Spanish, worked for our gated community’s property-management company, and had attended Mass at the same Orlando church we went to. She said she could help us appeal our denied green cards. The lawyer had made some obvious mistakes, and with just a few tweaks, our immigration case would be open and shut.

Because we had had the privilege of immigrating legally, in the eyes of the law we were “good” immigrants. That year, the government reached a record number of deportations, having removed almost 400,000 people who presumably weren’t.

I still remember the muggy summer night in 2012 when, as a high-school sophomore, I held a letter with the official DHS seal saying that our appeal had been approved and our green cards would arrive within 45 to 120 days. “The evidence submitted with your Application on December 29, 2011 is been audited to establish your eligibility for the benefits sought,” it read, awkwardly. I did not yet know enough English to recognize that the sentence’s grammar was wrong.

The summer days went by, and the agent stopped returning our calls. The last we heard from her, in 2013, she was going on an emergency trip to New York to take care of her sick daughter. It became obvious that the letter I translated in my parents’ minivan that night was fake, and that the person who gave it to us was not an immigration agent. Our visas had already expired. We were left undocumented.

We later learned that this person had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from at least 10 different families in the Orlando area. We met some of them and, one day, my father said we had to go to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to file a report. Because we had lost approximately $6,000 in this scheme, and the agent had often asked us to pay up or we’d be deported, we argued that our case qualified as extortion, one of the crimes covered under the U-visa category.

I wrote pages and pages of a witness statement at the police station, until we needed scrap paper and my wrist was sore. It was my first argument for freedom.

To be able to submit our application for approval, we needed a law-enforcement official to sign a form attesting that we had been helpful in the investigation of the case. At the station, my father feared that our information would be used to deport, not help, us. “We came to the wolf’s mouth,” I recall him saying. In a letter from May 2014, the sheriff’s office wrote that although we had cooperated with the investigation, “the crime committed is not a qualifying offense.” No police officer ended up signing the application.

A signature—a mere scribble—is what has kept us from our peace. We had no other redress.

B y the end of the Obama administration—the old normal—the 44th president had deported more than 3 million immigrants . Holding facilities for unaccompanied children dotted the border. Blimps and drones patrolled the skies in search of crossers.

Then Trump came, exposing our immigration system’s capacity for evil when used with intention. The prohibition of travel from Muslim-majority countries; the raids at workplaces such as 7-Elevens and poultry-processing plants ; the wanton separation of families ; the termination of Temporary Protected Status for countries mired in humanitarian crises ; the delegitimization of birthright citizenship ; the extreme reduction of refugee intake numbers ; the since-defeated rule that an immigrant could be denied a visa based on the likelihood that they would become a “ public charge ” to the government; the attempted rescission of DACA ; and the alleged coercion of detained women into receiving hysterectomies all forced activists, scholars, and even elected officials to confront the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may need to be outright abolished. Then-Senator Kamala Harris cautiously urged her colleagues to “think about starting from scratch” on immigration enforcement the summer before entering the Democratic presidential primary.

The bedlam of 2016 led me to become a journalist. The act of writing required no papers. If the odds that I would obtain status had become even slimmer, my bylines at least could prove that I was here. I worked internship after unpaid internship, applying to as many scholarships as I could so that I could afford to get by. I opted out of tours of the White House press room, recalling that March morning.

Like many other journalists of color, I have straddled the line of wanting to give better representation to my community but being deemed too close to the facts to be “unbiased.” One newsroom explicitly told me that allowing me to intern with them would “pose the threat of compromising us legally and journalistically.” Papers are somehow also a talisman of neutrality.

One notable advance in immigrant rights during the Trump years was the passage of state laws and local policies allowing some undocumented immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses, shielding them from traffic violations that sent many to ICE detention. In 2018, fearing I might not be able to replace my passport as Venezuela slipped further into mayhem, I tried to get a D.C. ID card. In doing so, I nearly lost everything.

I have a habit of losing things: an umbrella in an Uber, my cellphone on a ride at Universal Studios, my computer and camera at a Miami mall (almost). I’ve always comforted myself with the convenient truth that material possessions are, at the end of the day, always replaceable. But not all papers are.

After my third failed attempt (the D.C. DMV kept insisting that my time living on campus could not fulfill the six-month residency requirement), I went into a Peet’s Coffee to call the university’s undocumented-student-services director, who’d been helping me with the process. Two days later, after likely hundreds of customers had passed through the shop, I jolted awake, realizing that I hadn’t brought my envelope back to my dorm with me. Gone with it would be dozens of pages of documents, the only government documents I had to show that I was here, in this country, at this moment. We tend to forget that even our birth has to be certified, and I was facing the possibility that I might never be able to see that piece of paper again.

I ran back. By some miracle, somebody had returned the lost papers to the cashier, who had put them in the coffee shop’s basement for safekeeping. Handing the folder back to me, the manager said, “You should be careful with those.” I felt, for the first time, the terror of a reality that had haunted me for years—that one small misstep could thrust my life into chaos.

Over the following months, I resolved to study law because the law had failed me. Without a work authorization, I could not be hired full-time anywhere, and law school gave me a much-needed safety net while also allowing me to confront the ancient doctrines that deemed me “alien.”

I came across the case of Fong Yue Ting, a Chinese immigrant who was arrested and deported because he did not have a certificate of residence, as the Geary Act (an extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act) required. With its decision in this case, the Supreme Court in 1893 cemented the government’s “plenary power” to expel immigrants. Deportation, the Court said, was “not a punishment for crime,” but merely a way of enforcing the power of Congress and the president to place conditions on immigrants’ continued residence here. “He has not, therefore, been deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” Justice Horace Gray wrote . Equal rights, the law says, do not belong equally to us. And yet here I was, proof of the law’s obsolescence.

From the May 2021 issue: America never wanted the tired, poor, huddled masses

U nbeknownst to me , a momentary reprieve was coming.

On the last full day of Trump’s presidency, with less than 24 hours of his term left, Trump decided to grant Venezuelans work permits and protection from deportation through Deferred Enforced Departure, citing the “deteriorative condition” of Venezuela caused by “the autocratic government of Nicolas Maduro.” That the most virulently anti-immigrant administration in recent memory would be the one to release me from the constant anxiety of being alien in the eyes of the law tasted of a bittersweet irony immigrants know well, in our worlds of contradiction.

I knew that reality would change little. For days before the memorandum came out, my corner of D.C. had been overrun by armored vehicles, soldiers, local cops, and even Border Patrol agents, following the insurrection at the Capitol. Crossing the street meant having to decide whether acknowledging or ignoring the officers would raise fewer questions. I stopped walking the dog alone.

I’d learned to temper any high hopes I had for the government. Despite whatever mercy Trump may have thought he was showing at the eleventh hour, my rights were still subject to the whims of any federal agent until I had the proper papers in my hand. Trump’s DHS never published any guidance on how to apply for this temporary status, so it helped nobody.

But on March 8, Biden actually delivered a long-awaited reprieve to undocumented Venezuelans. Fresh off the Senate’s approval of the stimulus bill, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that he would be extending Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans who already lived here “while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises.” The formal guidance came out the next day. For Haitians, who have also been battling a humanitarian crisis and this administration’s own deportations , TPS relief did not come until May 22, after months of advocacy .

That Monday, the happy result of Washington’s political game was another press release that granted me rights slightly more permanently, until September 2022 for now.

In a few months, I’ll have status. But who won’t? And why me?

Due to an editing error, this article previously misstated that an immigrant must be married to a U.S. citizen for at least three years before receiving permanent residency. In fact, this is the length of time generally required to apply for citizenship after receiving legal permanent residence through marriage.

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Guide for Undocumented Individuals Traveling in the U.S.

Themes/Topics: Law & Policy

Geography: California, National

Audience: Ally, Educator, Undocumented Youth

Introduction

Traveling in the U.S. can be a complicated and stressful process for anyone—even more so if you’re undocumented! But it doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’re thinking of traveling as an undocumented person (with or without DACA) and are curious about how to travel safely, read on. Safe travels, undocu-travelers!

Introduction Domestic Flights Ground Transportation: Public Buses & Trains Ground Transportation: Driving Traveling to U.S. Territories

Domestic Flights

All travelers flying on a domestic flight must present a valid (unexpired) photo ID issued by the state or federal government. Undocumented individuals may use the following forms of ID accepted by TSA:

• State photo identity card
• State driver’s license
• Military ID
• Foreign passport (must be unexpired 1 )
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Employment Authorization Card
• Trusted traveler cards such as the NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST cards issued by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”)
• Border-crossing cards
• Native American tribal ID cards
• Airline or airport photo ID cards issued in compliance with TSA regulations and transportation worker ID credential

For a full list of TSA-acceptable forms of ID click here .

FAQ Regarding Domestic Flights

Yes, as noted above, the list of approved identification to fly domestically includes foreign government-issued passports (must be valid) and/or a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766). There have been reports of individuals who were not able to fly with these documents due to erroneous TSA agent denials. In such instances, inform the TSA agent that according to posted Transportation Security Administration guidelines, these are acceptable documents. Here is the link: tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

We recommend that you review TSA’s most up-to-date guidelines before your domestic flight.

Ground Transportation: Public Buses & Trains

There have been reports, especially during the Trump Administration, of Border Patrol agents conducting immigration checks without warrants on buses and trains, such as Greyhound and Amtrak. Although Customs Border Patrol (CBP) has publicly said that its agents are prohibited from boarding buses/trains and questioning passengers without warrants or a company’s consent, it’s a good idea for any passenger to be aware of the following rights:

• You have the right to remain silent.
• When in doubt, do not answer questions about your citizenship or immigration status or sign any paperwork without the advice of a lawyer. Do not lie – silence is often better.
• If you have valid immigration papers, you can provide them. Never provide false documents.
• You can refuse a search of your belongings by saying “I do not consent to a search.”
• You have the right to record video of immigration agents.
• If you are stopped or searched, you have the right to ask for the officer’s name / ID number.

FAQ Regarding Ground Transportation

Ground transportation: driving.

Like citizens, certain non-citizens may be eligible to drive legally. In some states, certain non-citizens are eligible to apply for a driver’s license. Check your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to determine if you are eligible to apply for a driver’s license regardless of your immigration status. If you are stopped by either law enforcement or immigration enforcement while in your car, consider the following recommendations:

• Stop the car in a safe place as quickly as possible. Turn off the car, turn on the internal light, open the window part way, and place your hands on the wheel.
• Upon request, show the police your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance.
• If an officer or immigration agent asks to search your car, you can refuse. However, if the police believe your car contains evidence of a crime, they can search it without your consent.
• Both drivers and passengers have the right to remain silent. If you’re a passenger, you can also ask if you’re free to leave. If yes, silently leave.

FAQ Regarding Driving

Below are some noted checkpoints within California. Be prepared. Plan your route of travel and check before traveling.

• San Clemente: located 7 miles south of San Clemente on Interstate 5.
• Temecula: located 24 miles north of Escondido on Interstate 15.
• Highway 79: located 1 mile west of Sunshine Summit.
• I-8 West: located 3 miles east of Pine Valley on Interstate 8.
• Highway 94: located 24 miles east of San Diego on California State Route 94.
• Highway 78/86: located just south of the intersection of California State Routes 78 and 86, just west of the Salton Sea, controlling northbound traffic only.
• Highway 111: located between Niland and Bombay Beach.
• Highway S2: located 7 miles north of Ocotillo and I-8 in eastern San Diego County on S2 (Imperial Hwy/Sweeney Pass Road) between I-8 and State Route 78.

Traveling to U.S. Territories

Undocumented individuals who hold a temporary protection (e.g. TPS/DACA-recipients) may travel to the U.S. Territories without Advance Parole. However, it’s important to know where and how to safely travel overseas to the U.S. Territories.

IMPORTANT : Traveling to the U.S Territories without DACA, even though a person has never technically left the U.S., could result in a referral to ICE for removal.

You may also find the following information on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) website helpful.

[1] If you’re traveling with an expired license or passport you may still be able to fly. Acceptable forms of ID cannot be more than 12 months past the identified expiration date. Click here for more information.

This resource was created by Jesús Flores Rodríguez with editing support from Claire Calderón and Denia Pérez, Esq.

Immigrants Rising helps you make decisions based on your potential, not your perceived limits. Visit our website so you can see what’s possible: immigrantsrising.org . For inquiries regarding this resource, please contact Jesus Flores, Career Services Lead, at [email protected] . Revised 9/2023.

Related Resource:

• Guía para personas indocumentadas que viajan en EE.UU.

Know your rights and options for immigration relief! Immigrant students, faculty, and staff from CA community colleges can get free immigration legal services through the Higher Education Legal Services Project.

About 500K undocumented immigrants will benefit from this executive order. How to apply

President Joe Biden's executive order Keeping Families Together went into effect Monday, initiating a process that could allow over half a million family members of U.S. citizens to stay in the country legally, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting requests as of Aug. 19 to grant parole-in-place to eligible noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens who are present in the country without lawful immigration status.

The notice follows Biden’s June directive to expand lawful pathways to keep families together and address "our broken immigration system."

“This is something that will help members of a community, people who have been working, contributing (to) and building their families in this country,” said Ben Monterroso, co-founder and senior advisor at Poder Latinx, a nationwide civic and social justice organization dedicated to building and strengthening Latino political power.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that more than two-thirds of noncitizens who are married to U.S. citizens are present in the country without due admission or parole, which makes them ineligible for status adjustment. Under the Keeping Families Together process, 500,000 noncitizen spouses and 50,000 noncitizen stepchildren may qualify for parole-in-place.

“Too often, noncitizen spouses of U.S. citizens — many of them mothers and fathers — live with uncertainty due to undue barriers in our immigration system,” said Ur M. Jaddou, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in a statement. “This process to keep U.S. families together will remove these undue barriers for those who would otherwise qualify to live and work lawfully in the U.S., while also creating greater efficiencies in the immigration system, conducting effective screening and vetting, and focusing on noncitizens who contribute to and have longstanding connections within American communities across the country.”

Applicants who are granted parole through this process and are eligible could then apply for lawful permanent residence without having to leave the country.

“We have an opportunity to start coming out of the shadows of society and to continue contributing and living lives in this country, especially the half a million eligible to become legal permanent residents, to move on and to become U.S. citizens,” Monterroso said, adding he encourages everyone with the opportunity to apply to do so as soon as possible even amidst the current political climate, which may spook some potential applicants.

“I was legalized through the amnesty of the 80s,” he said, referring to the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986 enacted by President Ronald Reagan that offered legalization and prospective naturalization to undocumented migrants and farm workers who entered the country prior to 1982.

Birthright citizenship in the U.S.: GOP candidates want to end it. Here's what to know

Besides the immigration reform in the 80s, Monterroso said a similar process occurred during the enactment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established by President Barack Obama in 2012 that prompted fear among eligible individuals to put their names in official papers saying they were present in this country.

“The bottom line is we are here, we cannot (remain) invisible and afraid of being known. We have an opportunity to benefit and move forward with a legalized process in the U.S.,” he said.

Monterroso said Poder Latinx will continue its efforts to educate the community on the process and their rights, keeping in mind that the biggest opportunity citizens of this country have will come in November. 

“This is a step in the right direction, but it’s by no means the solution we need. We cannot ignore the fact that we have millions of others who also deserve an opportunity to come out of the shadows,” he said, adding that this is a problem that cannot be fixed solely through executive orders but through proper legislation.

“Those who are families, (those) married to a citizen should be able to participate in the elections to make sure elected officials do the right thing for everyone in this country,” Monterroso said.

Who is eligible to apply for the parole-in-place program?

Eligibility requirements for noncitizen spouses include having been continuously physically present in the country since June 17, 2014, and marriage to a U.S. citizen on or before June 17, 2024.

Applying noncitizen stepchildren must have been under the age of 21 and unmarried on June 17, 2024, and continuously physically present in the country since at least that date. Stepchildren must have a noncitizen parent married to a U.S. citizen on or before June 17, 2024, and before their 18th birthday.

Both noncitizen spouses and stepchildren must be in the country without admission or parole and have no disqualifying criminal history.

How to apply for the parole-in-place program

Interested and eligible individuals must file an Application for Parole in Place for Certain Noncitizen Spouses and Stepchildren of U.S. Citizens, or Form I-131F , by creating an account online and paying a $580 fee.

No fee waiver requests are accepted for this process, according to the USCIS website.

Immigration resources in Arizona

Many organizations in Arizona currently offer services that can assist immigrant community members and may assist in filing this form:

Poder Latinx  hosts workshops throughout the year that help immigrants apply for residency and become naturalized citizens. Find them at 1616 E. Indian School Road, Suite 480, Phoenix, [email protected],  https://poderlatinx.org/ .

Latinos United for Change in Arizona  offers help with DACA applications, residency renewals and the naturalization process. Find them at 5716 N. 19th Ave., Phoenix, 602-388-9745,  https://www.luchaaz.org/ .

Phoenix Legal Action Network  offers legal support for non-detained immigrants in Arizona by representing them before court in immigration cases. Find them at 602-730-1726, [email protected],  https://planphx.org/ .

The Florence Project  offers legal representation for detained immigrants and education services related to immigration processes in Arizona. Find them at Phoenix line 602-307-1008, Tucson line 520-777-5600, [email protected],  https://firrp.org/ .

La Voz reporter Erick Treviño contributed to this article.

Solutions for Undocumented Immigrants

An earned pathway to citizenship, with restitution, allows the undocumented to fully assimilate and integrate into the United States without being unfair to those who have waited years for their green card applications to be approved. The solution must be in the rational middle ground between mass deportation and amnesty.

Download the whitepaper (PDF)  

The undocumented immigrant population in the United States is a glaring sign of a broken immigration system. For too many years, immigration policy has been reformed at the margins, with executive orders filling in where legislation has been desperately needed.

Our immigration system is not built to accommodate the needs of our economy. Too few green cards are allocated to fill open jobs. Outdated provisions like per-country caps artificially limit the number of immigrants that may enter from any country every year. There are not enough pathways to entry for immigrants. The result is decades-long backlogs for many people who want to live and work in the United States legally but are instead frustrated by the very process enshrined in our laws.

This inadequate system created the undocumented population we have today. We cannot enforce and deport our way out of this. Congress should pass a top-to-bottom reform of our immigration system so that we can reduce the incentives for unauthorized immigration.

More than  10 million people in the United States don’t have a legal immigration status. Around a third of them are Dreamers — individuals brought to the United States by their parents as children. Most undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States for decades. Many have U.S.-citizen children. They fill an important role in our economy, representing around 4.6% of the labor force. These people are our friends, neighbors, relatives, and colleagues — it is in America’s interest to find a reasonable solution for this population. An earned pathway to citizenship, with restitution, allows them to fully assimilate and integrate into the United States without being unfair to those who have waited years for their green card applications to be approved.

The solution for the undocumented must be in the rational middle ground between mass deportation and amnesty. Congress’s continued failure to advance legislation tacitly endorses this unworkable status quo.

Characteristics of the undocumented in the United States

The undocumented population declined to 10.5 million in 2019 from 12.2 million in 2007. Nearly  60% of undocumented immigrants came to the United States legally and overstayed their temporary visas. This figure is up from 40% a few years ago and is part of a rising trend of unauthorized migration from Asian countries. While the popular narrative is that undocumented immigrants cross our border illegally and would be prevented by additional border enforcement, the data tell a different story.

The undocumented immigrant population in the United States is not driven by new arrivals. Long-term residency is the norm — about two-thirds of the undocumented have lived in the country for more than a decade.

Many undocumented immigrants live in mixed-status families. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that  more than a fifth of unauthorized immigrants were married to U.S. citizens or green card holders. Over 4 million American-born children have at least one unauthorized immigrant parent.

Undocumented immigrants are crucial to the U.S. labor force. They fill important gaps, a fact that has become even more salient during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, American farmers rely on undocumented immigrants as agricultural laborers to harvest our food.  In construction, 12% of the workforce is undocumented — these are the men and women rebuilding U.S. cities after devastating natural disasters. The undocumented clean our homes and workplaces and prepare the takeout we are eating so much of during the pandemic. They provide childcare; they tend to our lawns and gardens.

The undocumented are workers Americans interact with daily but do not fully see.

Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes every year. While they don’t have Social Security numbers or a legal work authorization,  50% to 75% pay federal income taxes. The undocumented also pay other taxes — sales taxes and property taxes, for example — just like other Americans who consume goods and services and live in houses or apartments.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated  $11.74 billion in state and local taxes were paid by undocumented immigrants in 2014. New American Economy estimated they  contributed $100 billion in Social Security and $35 billion in Medicare funding from 2004 to 2014, bolstering the solvency of those programs.

Undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for most entitlement benefits, including SNAP food stamps and Social Security. They do not qualify for federal housing assistance. The only medical coverage they have is for emergency room visits, so they generally do not receive preventative care, unless it’s paid for by private insurance obtained through an employer. They pay into a social safety net that protects us, but they do not have a safety net for themselves.

Their lack of legal work authorization severely limits their ability to find jobs that meet their skills and education. Almost a fifth of unauthorized immigrants had four-year college degrees, a surprising statistic when considering the industries with high numbers of unauthorized workers, such as the service industry, hospitality, and construction. The Pew Research Center estimated that  more than half of unauthorized workers were employed in those industries.

In many states, undocumented immigrants cannot obtain a driver’s license or an occupational license — even if they are highly skilled in that occupation.

The economic contributions of the undocumented are seen most clearly when we analyze what would be lost without them in the workforce. As the American Action Forum showed in its 2015 report on full enforcement of immigration law,  real gross domestic product would decline by $1 trillion if we deported all the undocumented immigrants in the United States. A follow-up report in 2016 found full enforcement  would annually decrease private sector economic output by 2.9% to 4.7%.

These immigrants do not choose to be here without legal authorization as if it is the easy way to migrate. They do it because they desire the same freedom and opportunity we have as Americans. But our immigration system does not have enough paths available which would allow them to legally migrate here.

Creating an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented

A legal immigration system that both meets the needs of America’s economy and is realistic about the challenges at the border would be a vital policy tool in preventing illegal immigration. Congress has the power to fix that by modernizing our immigration system to ensure that there are more legal channels for immigrants of all skill levels to come to the United States. But it does not address the challenge of what to do about the current population of undocumented immigrants.

Some legal tools already exist, such as sponsorship by family members who are already legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States. While some of the undocumented population qualifies for legal status based on family relationships, the wait times are many years, if not decades, long. Undocumented immigrants whose relatives are citizens have shorter wait times because of immigration law preference rules.

Some undocumented immigrants might also qualify for temporary worker visas, which would grant them legal status. But most of those visa categories do not offer a way for visa holders to adjust their status to legal permanent residence, so they are inadequate to the larger policy objective, which is integration and assimilation of this population.

These existing tools are inadequate to the task, however. Congress should pass an earned pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. Legislation like this will need these key components:

• Demonstrated continuous presence in the United States for a number of years;
• A background check so that the American people can be confident that any immigrant earning the right to stay in the United States has demonstrated the character of a good citizen; and
• Restitution, including paying any back taxes owed or showing proof of income taxes already paid, and paying a fee or penalty for the time spent here without authorization.

Both the George W. Bush Administration and the Barack Obama Administration supported legislation  which contained these components. It’s not the intent of this paper to be proscriptive to Congress. Rather, the Bush Institute believes that these components are a good start to legislation that’s based on sound policy and is focused on workable solutions. Congress should use these components as building blocks for new proposals that meet today’s reality.

What will happen to the undocumented without legislative action? Many will continue to live and work in the United States at the jobs they can get, whether or not the positions are in line with their skills and education. Many will make less than similar legal workers because their employers know they can be exploited. They will continue to live with the fear of deportation. And they will continue to contribute to our country even though they can expect little in return.

In short, the status quo will remain. About 5% of our labor force will continue to contribute to our communities and pay taxes to support our safety net without any hope of becoming full participants in the country whose freedom and opportunity drew them.

Characteristics of Dreamers

Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. Some came illegally and others had parents who were on visas like the H-1B for highly skilled temporary workers. These children became Dreamers when they aged out of the immigration system on their 21st birthdays, while their parents remained stuck in long backlogs to adjust their temporary visas to green cards.

Dreamers received their nickname from the DREAM Act,  bipartisan legislation originally filed in 2001. The DREAM Act, if it had passed, would have provided a special pathway to citizenship for these undocumented immigrants. The reasoning was simple: We do not hold children accountable for their parents’ actions.

The most defining characteristic of Dreamers is how American they are. Dreamers were raised in the United States as Americans, and they often know no other home than the United States.

Unsatisfied that the DREAM Act had not passed Congress, President Obama created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by executive action in 2012. The goal was straightforward: to protect Dreamers from deportation and give them the ability to work legally.

Among other requirements,  applicants had to have arrived in the United States before their 16th birthdays; been continuously present in the United States since 2007; been in school, have a high school diploma or GED, or be honorably discharged from the military; and have no felony or significant misdemeanor convictions. An estimated  800,000 Dreamers have signed up for DACA since its inception. But with over  1 million DACA-eligible people in the United States, we know that there are more Dreamers still awaiting relief.

Without a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers, they will continue to live with the limited protection that DACA provides and the knowledge that any administration can use executive action to eliminate DACA protections and work permits. Deportation is a real possibility as long as Dreamers remain in this temporary status.

The United States misses out on the full contributions of Dreamers with each year that passes without a permanent legislative solution. DACA’s work permits demonstrate what Dreamers can do with a little bit of opportunity. According to an American Action Forum analysis, the average DACA worker contributes $109,000 per year to the economy.  This is a number that will continue to increase each year as DACA recipients, who are often young and at the beginning of their careers, attain more education and work experience, increasing their earnings over time.

DACA recipients attend college in similar numbers  to their native-born counterparts. More than half are employed; for those not currently working, 62% are enrolled in school. DACA recipients are more likely to work in jobs that meet their skills and education than Dreamers without DACA.

More important than their pure economic contributions are the role they currently play in our society. Many Dreamers are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly  half of the over 1 million DACA-eligible people in the United States are essential workers, according to a New American Economy analysis of American Community Survey data. Among them are 62,000 essential healthcare workers. These are the people who are keeping us safe and healthy during these scary and uncertain times. They deserve a solution that recognizes that they are Americans, just like us.

DACA provides a strong legislative framework for Dreamers because it was based on the components of the many bipartisan versions of the Dream Act that have been filed in Congress over the last 20 years. Many of these bills have garnered dozens of co-sponsors and strong bipartisan support. Many members of Congress already are very familiar with the legislation..

Unlike other immigration reform proposals, a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers is not controversial. Polling conducted by the Pew Research Center in June 2020 showed almost  75% of Americans supported legislation to provide Dreamers with permanent legal status. Majority support for this cuts across nearly every demographic, with even most Republicans in favor.

Given the familiarity of the issue and strong bipartisan support, Congress should have already passed a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers. As it has not, it should be one of the first priorities the new Congress puts to a floor vote in 2021.

Why provide a pathway to citizenship

Providing a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented population, and a special pathway for Dreamers, is both practical and good policy. It’s unreasonable to deport millions of people who are working, contributing, and positively impacting our communities. It’s also expensive.  A 2015 analysis by the American Action Forum found that fully enforcing current immigration law — detaining and deporting every undocumented immigrant in the United States and preventing any new unlawful immigration — would cost $400 billion to $600 billion, decrease GDP by almost $1 trillion, contract the economy by 6%, and take 20 years to accomplish.

In addition to the practical considerations, we must consider the larger policy implications of having millions of people who cannot, under our current laws, ever hope to be full participants in American civic life. It is a good thing to have all residents of a country as involved as possible. A democracy with more engaged participants can better reflect the will of its citizens. Active participation strengthens institutions, and a more engaged citizenry is better able to hold its democratically elected representatives to account.

Indeed, unlike legal permanent residents who choose not to become American citizens, and thus voluntarily limit their participation in American civic life, undocumented immigrants don’t have the choice. Further, given the restrictions of our immigration system, they never had an opportunity to apply for a green card and earn the chance to later apply for citizenship. It’s in our interest as Americans that these immigrants are integrated and assimilated fully into American life. We must find a legislative solution to integrate them. And we must redesign our immigration system to prevent another population of undocumented immigrants in the future.

The political argument on the undocumented too often devolves into respect for the rule of law versus respect for the dignity of the undocumented immigrants. This is a false choice.

The Bush Institute advocates a policy solution for the undocumented which embraces reality. It is not realistic to deport  millions of workers. It is not realistic to assume that increasing security will reduce the undocumented population or prevent new migrants from coming. We must deal reasonably with the population we have, and we must redesign our immigration system to provide legal opportunities for migration, disincentivizing anyone from attempting to cross our border illegally or overstaying his or her visa.

Only Congress can provide a solution for the undocumented. And when it debates the fate of the undocumented, it should not forget it also has the power to design a new legal immigration system that will provide enough opportunities that no one has to live in the shadows.

• Creating avenues for legal migration through self-petitioning By: Laura Collins

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Scholarship Highlight: Post-Bruen Judicial Partisanship and Immigration Restrictions

• August 23, 2024
• Categories:
• Second Amendment
• Supreme Court
• Immigration
• Prohibited Persons

By: Andrew Willinger

The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.

In a new draft posted to SSRN, Rebecca Brown, Lee Epstein, and Mitu Gulati empirically analyze the partisan divide in gun-rights cases since Bruen .   They generally find that “ Bruen appears to have left sufficient discretion to lower court judges such that the Democratic judges were able to uphold gun rights less often while Republicans were able to champion gun rights.”   They also argue, with regard to judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, that “ Bruen may have amplified careerism, in the form of promotion effects.”

Alan Mygatt-Tauber, in a new article, takes an in-depth look at restrictions on undocumented immigrants possessing firearms.   Mygatt-Tauber focuses on whether historical analogues might support laws targeting undocumented immigrants and argues “that lawfulness of status is irrelevant to the question of a noncitizen’s rights under the Second Amendment.”

Rebecca L. Brown, Lee Epstein & Mitu Gulati, Guns, Judges and Trump , posted to SSRN

This Essay reports data on the impact of Bruen and its predecessor, Heller , on gun rights cases. Put mildly, the impact was substantial, not only in terms of the number of cases in the courts but also the partisanship displayed in the application of Bruen . And that partisanship increase was particularly large on the part of Trump-appointed judges. The Supreme Court has now decided Rahimi , its first opportunity to apply Bruen . While the Court's new decision blunted some of the sharpest concerns raised by Bruen , it did not eliminate the key concern, recommitting itself to a test that places considerable unguided discretion in judges, inviting partisan bias. The revolution that the Court wrought through Bruen and Heller may have only just begun.

Alan Mygatt-Tauber, The Second Amendment Rights of Undocumented Immigrants , posted to SSRN

In 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller , the Supreme Court, for the first time, held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. Challenges to various federal gun control laws immediately followed, including challenges to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(a), which prohibits possession by an undocumented immigrant. Between 2008 and 2022, courts faced with challenges to 922(g)(5)(a) universally upheld it. Then the Court decided New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen , in which it discarded the means-end balancing tests the courts of appeals had adopted, instead preferring a test focused on “history and tradition.” Under Bruen ’s test, if a regulation was targeted at conduct protected by the Second Amendment, it was presumptively invalid, unless the government could identify an analogous law from the time of the Founding. New challenges were filed. Many courts have continued to uphold the constitutionality of 922(g)(5)(a), but others have found that it is unconstitutional. And at least two circuits have upheld the statute on the ground that undocumented immigrants are not part of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment.

This article is the first in-depth look at the application of Bruen ’s test, as modified by the Court’s June 2024 decision in United States v. Rahimi , that addresses both the question of whether undocumented immigrants are part of “the people” entitled to Second Amendment protections and, if so, whether any of the historical analogues identified by the government serve to justify 922(g)(5)(a)’s complete ban on gun ownership. It concludes 1) that undocumented immigrants are part of “the people” because status is irrelevant to the question—it is physical presence in the United States that matters; and 2) none of the purported analogues support a categorical ban on undocumented immigrants possessing firearms. Instead, they support an individualized analysis where only the dangerous may be disarmed.

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Biden's immigration plan for undocumented spouses could transform lives — and the election

PHOENIX — Rodrigo de la Rosa was only 5 years old when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with his father and three brothers. Growing up in South Phoenix, he had what he calls “just a regular American life” — until, as a teenager, he learned he was undocumented. 

“When you turn 16 and you can’t get a regular job, that’s when you realize, ‘Oh, I’m different,’” he said. 

In his mid-20s, de la Rosa married Ashley de Alba, who was born and raised in California by Mexican and Salvadoran parents. But marrying a U.S. citizen was not enough to fix his immigration status. He could apply for a green card but would need to leave the country first — and risk getting stuck in Mexico for a decade or even permanently. 

That changed Monday, when the federal government began accepting applications for a sweeping new Biden administration program allowing undocumented spouses of American citizens to apply to regularize their status without leaving the U.S. The White House estimates the program applies to 500,000 immigrants across the country, as well as to an additional 50,000 of their children (the stepchildren of their American citizen spouses). 

To qualify, applicants must have been married to a U.S. citizen prior to June 17, when the program was first announced; not have a disqualifying criminal history (which includes all felonies and a number of other crimes, such as domestic violence and most drug offenses); and prove they have lived continuously in the United States for at least 10 years (the government estimates the average is more than two decades). 

Those whose applications are approved will be granted a form of legal relief known as “parole in place,” which protects them from deportation and allows them to apply for work permits, green cards and eventually citizenship. 

This has the potential to fundamentally transform the lives of millions. 

“We would be able to actually do the things that we want to do,” said Ashley de Alba, de la Rosa’s wife. “We have a lot of high goals to reach.”

If de la Rosa were to get his papers, the list of ways it would change their life is long. De Alba is seven months pregnant with their first child, a girl. While de la Rosa has mostly been working painting houses and building scaffolding for stucco crews, he got good grades in school and has a passion for photography and media; a work permit and a green card would allow him to get steadier, safer work with insurance and retirement benefits. 

“It would give me the opportunity to provide for my family better and to have the career that I want,” de la Rosa said. 

It would also clear away pesky but meaningful obstacles to the bureaucratic aspects of married life, such as joint bank accounts and home ownership. It would free de la Rosa to travel internationally without worrying about how to get back into the U.S. — including to Mexico, to see his older brothers and the nieces and nephews he’s never met. And it would allow de la Rosa and de Alba to have the wedding of her dreams in Mexico: “A big, Mexican wedding — like a really fancy, Jalisco-style wedding,” de Alba said. 

In swing states, 'paying attention'

In a swing state like Arizona, the parole in place program also has the potential to meaningfully move the needle in November’s presidential election. De Alba voted for Donald Trump in 2020 — she said she admires his business acumen, believes the economy was in better shape when he was in office, and appreciates the fact that he’s “not afraid to speak his mind.” She was prepared to vote for him again in November, but now she’s undecided.

“Biden’s administration is the one that put this in place, so I’m very grateful for that,” de Alba said. The fact that Joe Biden himself dropped out of the race increased her interest in the Democratic ticket, though she doesn’t yet know enough about Vice President Kamala Harris to have finalized her decision.  

“I want to see how permanent this is,” de Alba said. “Is this just a ploy for votes? Or is this something that they’re actually taking seriously and going to follow through with? Then I’ll make my decision.” 

According to FWD.us, a pro-immigration group that advocated for the program, Arizona has some 15,000 people eligible for parole in place. Though they themselves can’t vote, they are all married to U.S. citizens who can, and are otherwise embedded in families and communities full of citizens who will benefit indirectly from the policy.

Considering that Biden won Arizona in 2020 with 10,457 votes and considering that polling shows razor-thin margins between Harris and Trump, the political impact of the parole in place program could be decisive.

Erika Castro, an undocumented community organizer with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada — another swing state with a large and long-settled immigrant population — said the parole in place program has helped energize Latino voters.

“People are paying attention,” she said. “They want to know what candidates are doing to actually improve their quality of life, and this is something that makes them feel like their vote is taken seriously.”  

Some 60,000 immigrants eligible for parole in place live in swing states, according to the estimates from FWD.us.

One of them is Foday Turay, who lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young child. Turay — a member of American Families United, a nonprofit group that lobbied for the executive action — was brought to the U.S. from Sierra Leone as a child and now works as a prosecutor for the office of the Philadelphia district attorney. He says his wife, who is from New Jersey, plans to vote for Harris in November exclusively because of the program.

“We are a single-issue household, and that issue is immigration,” Turay said. “My wife and her entire family were never going to vote. They’re going to vote now because they realize somebody they love will benefit from this program.” 

As consequential as DACA — and also facing challenges

Immigrant rights advocates describe parole in place as the largest and most consequential form of relief for undocumented immigrants since 2012’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the Obama administration’s program offering work permits and protection from deportation to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (Many who are applying for parole in place are, or were at one point, DACA recipients, including de la Rosa and Turay.) 

Like DACA, parole in place was instituted by way of executive action from the president, which makes the program inherently precarious.

Republicans have strongly condemned the program, with Trump calling it “mass amnesty” on Truth Social and Sen. Josh Hawley calling it “lawless” and “outrageous” on Fox News. America First Legal, the legal organization led by Stephen Miller, the architect of many of Trump’s immigration policies, promised to challenge the program in court, and a future Trump administration would almost certainly rescind it. 

The possibility of a Trump victory also gives some lawyers and advocates pause when it comes to encouraging people to apply for the program. Although many potential applicants (including those with DACA status) are already on the federal government’s radar, those who aren’t may not want to turn over large amounts of personal information to a government that may soon be run by a candidate who has promised indiscriminate mass deportations. 

“I think people need to tread carefully and file [an application] only after understanding all the risks and potential roadblocks,” said Mo Goldman, an immigration lawyer in Arizona. 

But for those families who are set on applying, the program has the potential to rectify what they view as a long-standing injustice. De Alba points out that her husband has spent his entire adult life working and paying taxes in the U.S. yet is excluded from many of the advantages she has access to. 

“Why? Just because I was born here? I could have been born in Mexico, too, but just because I was born here, I can do all these things that make my life a lot easier. That makes no sense,” she said. “I just want him to have the same opportunities that I have.”

For more from NBC Latino,  sign up for our weekly newsletter .

David Noriega is an NBC News correspondent based in Los Angeles.

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Noncitizen voting, already illegal in federal elections, becomes a centerpiece of 2024 GOP messaging

Bryan Steil, R-Wis., chairman of the Committee on House Administration, displays a large photo of an unlocked election ballot drop box in Washington, during a hearing about noncitizen voting in U.S. elections. on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Bryan Steil, R-Wis., chairman of the Committee on House Administration points to a election brochure for Washington, during a hearing he conducted about noncitizen voting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., questions a witness during a Committee on House Administration hearing about noncitizen voting in U.S. elections on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

FILE - Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens during a news conference, April 12, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans.(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

CORRECTS THAT SUTHERLAND TESTIFIED ABOUT FOREIGN DARK MONEY, NOT NONCITIZEN VOTING - Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, testifies about foreign dark money, before the Committee on House Administration on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Bryan Steil, R-Wis., chairman of the Committee on House Administration arrives for a hearing aboutnon citizen voting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd testifies about noncitizen voting in a hearing to the Committee on House Administration on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Christian Adams, president and general counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, left, talks with Hans von Spakovsky, during a hearing about noncitizen voting before the Committee on House Administration on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024, in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Hans von Spakovsky manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative testifies about noncitizen voting before the Committee on House Administration on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

From left, Christian Adams, president and general counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and senior legal fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd are sworn in before they testify about noncitizen voting before the Committee on House Administration on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 16, 2024 in Washington. In recent months, the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. has erupted into a leading rallying cry for Republicans. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

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NEW YORK (AP) — One political party is holding urgent news conferences and congressional hearings over the topic. The other says it’s a dangerous distraction meant to seed doubts before this year’s presidential election.

In recent months, the specter of immigrants voting illegally in the U.S. has erupted into a leading election-year talking point for Republicans. They argue that legislation is necessary to protect the sanctity of the vote as the country faces unprecedented levels of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens already is illegal in federal elections and there is no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers. Yet Republican lawmakers at the federal and state levels are throwing their energy behind the issue, introducing legislation and fall ballot measures. The activity ensures the issue will remain at the forefront of voters’ minds in the months ahead.

Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill called the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Meanwhile, Republican legislatures in at least six states have placed noncitizen voting measures on the Nov. 5 ballot, while at least two more are debating whether to do so.

“American elections are for American citizens, and we intend to keep it that way,” House Administration Committee Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin said during a hearing he hosted on the topic this past week.

Democrats on the committee lambasted their Republican colleagues for focusing on what they called a “nonissue,” arguing it was part of a strategy with former President Donald Trump to lay the groundwork for election challenges this fall.

“It appears the lesson Republicans learned from the fiasco that the former president caused in 2020 was not ‘Don’t steal an election’ — it was just ‘Start earlier,’” said New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the committee’s top Democrat. “The coup starts here. This is where it begins.”

The concern that immigrants who are not eligible to vote are illegally casting ballots has prevailed on the right for years. But it gained renewed attention earlier this year when Trump began suggesting without evidence that Democrats were encouraging illegal migration to the U.S. so they could register the newcomers to vote.

Republicans who have been vocal about voting by those who are not citizens have demurred when asked for evidence that it’s a problem. Last week, during a news conference on his federal legislation to require proof of citizenship during voter registration, House Speaker Mike Johnson couldn’t provide examples of the crime happening.

“The answer is that it’s unanswerable,” the Louisiana Republican said in response to a question about whether such people were illegally voting. “We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable.”

Election administration experts say it’s not only provable, but it’s been demonstrated that the number of noncitizens voting in federal elections is infinitesimal.

To be clear, there have been cases over the years of noncitizens illegally registering and even casting ballots. But states have mechanisms to catch that. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose recently found 137 suspected noncitizens on the state’s rolls — out of roughly 8 million voters — and is taking action to confirm and remove them, he announced this past week.

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In 2022, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, conducted an audit of his state’s voter rolls specifically looking for noncitizens. His office found that 1,634 had attempted to register to vote over a period of 25 years, but election officials had caught all the applications and none had been able to register.

In North Carolina in 2016, an audit of elections found that 41 legal immigrants who had not yet become citizens cast ballots, out of 4.8 million total ballots cast. The votes didn’t make a difference in any of the state’s elections.

Voters must confirm under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register to vote. If they lie, they can face fines, imprisonment or deportation, said David Becker, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research.

On top of that, anyone registering provides their Social Security number, driver’s license or state ID, Becker said. That means they already have shown the government proof of citizenship to receive those documents, or if they are a noncitizen with a state ID or Social Security number, they have been clearly classified that way in the state’s records.

“What they’re asking for is additional proof,” Becker said of Republicans pushing Johnson’s bill. “Why should people have to go to multiple government agencies and have them ask, ’Show us your papers,’ when they’ve already shown them?”

Democrats fear adding more ID requirements could disenfranchise eligible voters who don’t have their birth certificates or Social Security cards on hand. Republicans counter that the extra step could provide another layer of security and boost voter confidence in an imperfect system in which noncitizen voters have slipped through in the past.

The national focus on noncitizen voting also has brought attention to a related, but different phenomenon: how a small number of local jurisdictions, among them San Francisco and the District of Columbia, have begun allowing immigrants who aren’t citizens to vote in some local contests, such as for school board and city council.

The number of noncitizen voters casting ballots in the towns and cities where they are allowed to do so has been minimal so far. In Winooski, Vermont, where 1,345 people cast ballots in a recent local election, just 11 were not citizens, the clerk told The Associated Press. Still, the gradually growing phenomenon has prompted some state lawmakers to introduce ballot measures that seek to stop cities from trying this in the future.

In South Carolina, voters in November will decide on a constitutional amendment that supporters say will shut the door on any noncitizens voting. The state’s constitution currently says every citizen aged 18 and over who qualifies to vote can. The amendment changes the phrasing to say “only citizens.”

Republican state Sen. Chip Campsen called it a safeguard to prevent future problems. California has similar wording to South Carolina’s current provision, and Campsen cited a California Supreme Court decision that ruled “every” didn’t prevent noncitizens from voting.

Democratic state Sen. Darrell Jackson asked Campsen during the debate last month, “Do we have that problem here in South Carolina?”

“You don’t have the problem until the problem arises,” Campsen replied.

On Friday, legislative Republicans in Missouri passed a ballot measure for November that would ban both noncitizen voting and ranked-choice voting.

“I know that scary hypotheticals have been thrown out there: ‘Well, what about St. Louis? What about Kansas City?’” said Democratic state Sen. Lauren Arthur of Kansas City. “It is not a real threat because this is already outlawed. It’s already illegal in Missouri.”

Asked by a Democrat on Thursday about instances of noncitizens voting in Missouri, Republican Rep. Alex Riley said he didn’t have “specific data or a scenario that it has happened,” but wanted to “address the concern that it could happen in the future.”

In Wisconsin, an important presidential swing state where the Republican-controlled Legislature also put a noncitizen voting measure on the ballot this fall, Democratic state Rep. Lee Snodgrass said during a hearing earlier this week that she couldn’t understand why someone who is not a legal citizen would vote.

“I’m trying to wrap my brain around what people think the motivation would be for a noncitizen to go through an enormous amount of hassle to actively commit a felony to vote in an election that’s going to end up putting them in prison or be deported,” she said.

Associated Press writers Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Immigration and Catholic social teaching: how Trump and Harris’s platforms stack up

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention this week, leaders released the party’s platform , a 91-page document that dwarfs the Republican Party’s “America First” manifesto . On policy—from the economy to education—the two parties offer voters distinct positions. The difference is particularly acute on the hot-button topic of immigration, an issue on which the U.S. bishops have weighed in consistently over the last 20 years.

“If we don’t have a Border, we don’t have a Country,” the Republican document reads, quoting former president Donald J. Trump. The party is committed to stopping “illegal immigration,” and Republicans vow to “secure the Border, deport Illegal Aliens, and reverse the Democrats’ Open Borders Policies that have driven up the cost of Housing, Education, and Healthcare for American families.”

The Republican platform , which was curated by Mr. Trump and released last month, frames immigration through the lens of the American worker, presupposing that immigrants take jobs away from U.S. citizens. For example, according to the platform, Republicans will “end Chain Migration, and put American Workers first!”

[Related: Will Republicans lose pro-life voters after softening their abortion stance?]

“Chain migration” refers to family-based migration, where those who are already citizens or legal residents sponsor family members living abroad. Rather than “chain migration,” immigrant advocates—including those working for the church—refer to this as “family reunification.”

According to the Democratic platform, the party will seek ways to expand family reunification. The U.S. Citizenship Act, which the party supports, would “increase the number of family-sponsored and employment-based visas that are available each fiscal year so that people aren’t forced to wait decades for a visa.” The platform also notes President Biden’s “New Family Reunification Parole Process,” which helped a number of immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Haiti reunite with family members in the United States while their applications were still pending.

“The United States has long been a leader in refugee resettlement, providing a beacon of hope for persecuted people around the world, facilitating international efforts to address record displacement, and demonstrating the generosity and core values of the American people,” the platform states.

“Congress must pass legislation to provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, farmworkers, careworkers, and other long-term undocumented individuals who contribute to this country, by paying taxes and contributing to their local economies,” according to the Democratic platform. “Democrats will explore opportunities to identify or create work permits for immigrants, long-term undocumented residents, and legally processed asylum seekers in our country.”

Overall, the Democratic platform on immigration is far more robust and recognizes many more nuances of the immigration system. It refers, for example, to different kinds of visas, and applauds steps that the Biden administration took to expand Temporary Protective Status for those who come from “countries experiencing armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other crises.” The Republican platform, on the other hand, does not even mention Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors. The Democrats platform briefly mentions root causes of migration , while the Republicans do not.

The Catholic Church has not shied away from the issue of immigration. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops established the Justice for Immigrants campaign in 2004 as a way of prioritizing comprehensive immigration reform. According to its website, the campaign is “an effort to unite and mobilize a growing network of Catholic institutions, individuals, and other persons of goodwill in support of immigration reform.”

The campaign often points to Catholic social teaching on the issue of migration. For example, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church :

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

The bishops established the campaign after issuing “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” a joint pastoral letter with the bishops of Mexico, in 2003. In that letter, the bishops acknowledged “the right and responsibility of sovereign nations to control their borders and to ensure the security interests of their citizens.” Yet they rejected “some of the policies and tactics that our governments have employed to meet this shared responsibility.”

Further, according to the bishops, the right to enforce borders is not absolute and is only one of five principles that emerge from the church teaching on migration. The other four are:

• Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.
• Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families.
• Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.
• The human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected.

Even though the document is more than 20 years old, it remains remarkably applicable to the current immigration impasse. The bishops wrote:

While the sovereign state may impose reasonable limits on immigration, the common good is not served when the basic human rights of the individual are violated. In the current condition of the world, in which global poverty and persecution are rampant, the presumption is that persons must migrate in order to support and protect themselves and that nations who are able to receive them should do so whenever possible.

Granted, party platforms do not dictate future party actions, and the Democratic platform will likely be modified and updated. (For instance, it refers to President Biden as the party’s candidate for office.) The current administration , for its part, has not been short of critics on the issue . But the Democrats have put forward a position on immigration that resonates with much of Catholic social teaching . The Republicans have not.

J.D. Long García is a senior editor at America .

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In JD Vance’s Backyard, Conspiracy Theories About Migrants and Voting Abound

A far-right plank on immigration that is rooted in a baseless theory has found purchase among Republicans and right-leaning independents in parts of Ohio.

Demographic and cultural changes in Ohio over the past decade have made conditions ripe for conspiracy theories about immigration to spread. Credit...

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By Jazmine Ulloa

Photographs by Maddie McGarvey

Jazmine Ulloa reported from a region of Ohio stretching from Lordstown to Toledo, where she spoke with dozens of voters at baseball games, a county fair, and a demolition derby, and outside shopping plazas, pharmacies and local businesses.

• Aug. 18, 2024

Paul C. Pauley views himself as a middle-of-the-road Republican — who also just happens to believe in one of the most pernicious far-right conspiracy theories about illegal border crossings: that Democrats are bringing undocumented immigrants into the country to vote for their party.

“I don’t think they’re going to get that vote this year,” said Mr. Pauley, who sells evergreens on a family farm near Warren, Ohio. “But four years from now? Eight years from now?”

Former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, are pushing the idea to mobilize supporters based on fear of what they call a foreign “invasion.” But demographers and population studies experts say that there is no evidence for the claim. It also strains even the imagination, envisioning Democrats in Washington circumventing border rules, officials and infrastructure to allow undocumented immigrants into the country, help them settle and then cast ballots, legally or not.

Election, court and law enforcement officials who have monitored reports of voter fraud have found no proof of widespread fraud, and they have said that the number of noncitizens who have wrongfully cast ballots is minuscule. It is a crime for noncitizens to attempt to vote in federal elections.

More than a dozen cities and towns, mostly in deep-blue areas, allow foreign nationals to vote in local elections regardless of their immigration status, which state and local leaders say is warranted because unauthorized immigrants pay taxes at levels comparable to those of citizens and strengthen their economies. Many immigrants wait for years to become naturalized and do not register to vote or cast ballots once they do.

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