Open PDF in Browser: Lisa M. Martinez,* Constricted Legality: DACA Recipients, Belonging, and the Limits of Immigration Law
In June 2012, President Barack Obama announced a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) geared toward undocumented youth and young adults who arrived in the United States as children. Immigrants who met the criteria were afforded certain protections, including access to higher education, work permits, and driver’s licenses, while also being deprioritized from deportation. Research shows the DACA program enabled recipients to earn college degrees, enter professional fields, access higher paying occupations, and attain social mobility. In turn, these jobs provided recipients with access to health insurance and other benefits.
Yet, because DACA recipients are ineligible for citizenship, they inhabit a liminal space characterized by an acute awareness that their futures depend on the whims of presidential administrations, legal challenges, and bureaucratic delays. Their tenuous legal status also affects their membership in society. To better understand how liminality informs recipients’ sense of belonging, this Article draws on fifty nine qualitative interviews with DACA recipients living in Colorado. I begin by providing an overview of DACA’s implementation, rescission, and status in light of ongoing lawsuits before delving into the literature on immigrant integration, inclusion, and belonging. Next, I outline a concept that I term “constricted legality,” a conditional form of legal presence afforded to DACA eligible youth and young adults that is temporary, granted only in limited domains, and characterized by a high degree of legal uncertainty and describe the study population and methodology, which involved face to face interviews. Focusing on a subset of participant narratives, I then examine prominent themes that emerged from the interviews—namely, how constricted legality informed participants’ sense of belonging. The Article concludes with a discussion of the limits of deferred action and immigration law given the current political climate as well as the implications of constricted legality for DACAmented and undocumented immigrants in this country.
Introduction
In the United States, where the rhetoric of meritocracy meets the reality of exclusion, recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) occupy a paradoxical position. For all intents and purposes, they are American—educated in our nation’s schools, fluent in English, culturally assimilated—yet remain tethered to a precarious or liminal legal status. DACA recipients are often heralded as the “best and brightest” among the undocumented, a narrative meant to justify why they are deserving of some legal protections.[1] This framing hinges on their ability to embody idealized notions of productivity, discipline, and assimilation.[2] Indeed, when President Barack Obama announced he was implementing DACA by executive order in June 2012, he stated, “These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”[3] The message was clear; these are young people who, “through no decision of their own,”[4] were brought to the United States as children and have since “proven” themselves worthy of a tenuous form of legal recognition.[5] Yet this conditionality is precisely the problem.
Despite the protections DACA affords, such as work authorization[6] and access to higher education, these benefits merely offer an incremental gain[7] as recipients are not eligible for permanent residency nor is there a direct pathway to getting a green card.[8] Moreover, the narrow criteria[9] for DACA eligibility reinforce a hierarchy of deservingness, stratifying the undocumented population into those seen as redeemable and those deemed expendable.[10] Though they often express gratitude for the opportunities DACA provides, recipients experience a psychological burden[11] that comes from having an ambiguous legal status or liminality.[12] They live with an acute awareness that their futures rest on an unstable legal and political terrain subject to the whims of presidential administrations, legal challenges, and bureaucratic delays.
DACA’s limitations extend into nearly every aspect of life. For example, even though recipients’ college access improved, they remain ineligible for federal financial aid.[13] They also face other barriers to their educational attainment due to their legal status, including taking longer to matriculate because they can only afford a class or two at a time or missing out on internship or experiential learning opportunities, such as study abroad due to lack of documentation.[14] Additionally, some states treat DACA recipients as out‑of‑state residents, which drives up tuition costs, limits scholarship opportunities, and causes them to incur debt.[15] Workplace experiences reflect a similar contradiction. While DACA allows legal employment, the jobs available to recipients are often constrained by employers’ unfamiliarity with the program or by informal discrimination.[16] Furthermore, recipients face a labor market that welcomes their contributions but are often disadvantaged relative to nonimmigrant peers due to factors such as lack of relevant work experience or delayed starts to professional careers.[17] Recipients struggle to access benefits as well; for example, even when employed, they may be ineligible for health insurance.[18] These structural barriers are not merely logistical. They shape how recipients understand their membership in society and may signal that, despite their achievements, they are perpetual outsiders due to the temporariness of their legal status.[19]
The DACA program itself does little to address the relational dimensions of immigrant life. DACA recipients often live in mixed‑status families[20] where some members are undocumented, some are DACAmented,[21] and others are U.S. citizens. While they may hold a temporary reprieve, their siblings, parents, or spouses remain undocumented and legally vulnerable. This legal patchwork generates what sociologists Cecilia Menjívar and Leisy Abrego term legal violence, or harm inflicted not by overt enforcement but by the very structure of the law and its exclusions.[22] Legal violence is injurious, corrosive, and generates fear and uncertainty.[23] Its effects vary across social positions and further complicate immigrants’ legal uncertainty.
In this Article, I draw on the concept of constricted legality to frame how DACA recipients navigate a legal and social terrain marked by partial inclusion and precarity. Rather than understanding legal status as a binary of “documented” or “undocumented,” constricted legality highlights the way temporary, discretionary policies such as DACA grant limited protections while simultaneously restricting rights, opportunities, and long‑term security. This form of legality is narrow in scope, unstable, and shaped by the threat of revocation or policy change, resulting in a state of conditional belonging. By situating the analysis within this framework, my study attends to the everyday strategies, choices, and experiences shaped by recipients’ tenuous legal position. Constricted legality therefore serves as an analytical lens for understanding how DACAmented youth and young adults interpret their lives, plan for the future, and make sense of their contradictory form of recognition and belonging.
Drawing on fifty‑nine qualitative interviews, this Article examines DACA recipients’ sense of belonging before and after receiving deferred action. In Part I, I provide a brief chronology of DACA’s implementation in 2012, the circumstances surrounding its rescission in 2017, and ongoing legal challenges to the program. Part II addresses the literature on immigrant inclusion. I then outline the study population and methodology of face‑to‑face interviews in Part III before turning to the themes that emerged from participants’ narratives in Part IV. Finally, given the ways public opinion and political discourse perpetuate harmful stereotypes about immigrants, I conclude by discussing how the political climate affects immigrant inclusion.[24]
Chronology of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
Two months after President Obama implemented DACA through executive order, U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS) began accepting applications.[25] Originally, DACA was designed as a stopgap measure to provide relief to a group known as the 1.5 generation, which is comprised of young immigrants who were brought to the United States as young children.[26] Those who met eligibility criteria[27] were deprioritized from deportation and received work authorization. Because of the program and recipients’ increased ability to earn college degrees, they were able to find employment with health benefits, purchase homes, and attain social mobility.[28] As President Obama stated when he announced the program, DACA beneficiaries were given access to many of the opportunities available to U.S.‑born youth and young adults; however, the program stopped short of providing a pathway to citizenship.[29]
DACA’s implementation took place more than a decade after failed attempts to pass the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act[30] in 2001. This bipartisan bill aimed to provide a pathway to permanent legal status and, eventually, U.S. citizenship for 1.5 generation immigrants, the same demographic that would later be eligible for deferred action.[31] Although the measure was (and continues to be) popular with the public,[32] it failed to pass largely due to political divisions in Congress.[33] These divisions became even more entrenched after 9/11. Despite repeated attempts by some elected officials to pass legislation for DREAMers[34] or comprehensive immigration reform more broadly,[35] nothing materialized. Indeed, partisanship during Obama’s first term in office made it difficult for his Administration to follow through on 2008 campaign promises to provide a path to legalization for immigrants.[36] It was only a few months before the 2012 presidential election—an election where Obama needed the support of the Latinx electorate who overwhelmingly favored immigration reform and supports for DREAMers, especially in battleground states[37]—when DACA was implemented. In 2014, the program faced its first lawsuit, Texas v. United States, filed by Texas and twenty‑five other states attempting to block implementation of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA)[38] and expansion of DACA.[39] In February 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen issued a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing implementation of both.[40] Both the Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment in 2016, blocking DAPA and the DACA expansion but not disrupting the preexisting DACA program.[41]
In the first few years of DACA’s existence, 800,000 undocumented youth and young adults applied to the program.[42] Demographically, DACAmented immigrants disproportionately migrated from Mexico. Half were under the age of twenty‑one, nearly three‑quarters had lived in the United States for at least ten years, and one‑third were children when they arrived.[43] Preliminary data also showed that one of the main benefits was improved access to college as indicated by postsecondary enrollment and graduation rates among undocumented students.[44] DACA not only made it possible for them to earn undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, but it also improved their career opportunities after college.[45] For example, a Brookings Institute report showed that DACA incentivized students to stay in school in order to gain work authorization, resulting in improved high school completion rates.[46] Similarly, a study published by the Migration Policy Institute showed DACA improved recipients’ labor force participation rates and incomes.[47]
In terms of measurable outcomes, then, DACA improved recipients’ educational and occupational prospects.[48] But because it was implemented via executive action rather than through legislation, advocates recognized that the program’s future would be entrusted to Obama’s successor.[49] Many believed his successor would be Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump, who pledged to eliminate DACA and enact other restrictive immigration policies if elected.[50] After President Trump won the election, his Administration quickly began following through on its immigration agenda, beginning with the Muslim travel ban in January 2017.[51] Several months later, in September 2017, then‑Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in a nationally televised news conference[52] that DACA was being rescinded because it was an “unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.”[53] This announcement was met with many lawsuits[54] as well as protests from immigration advocates, business leaders, and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, the latter of whom made “[q]uick promises of congressional action.”[55] Despite the Trump Administration’s stated intent that DACA was ending to provide Congress with a six‑month window to enact legislation to protect recipients, several bills addressing comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers were introduced[56] but ultimately never passed.[57]
Subsequently, three U.S. district courts issued injunctions arguing that the DACA phase‑out was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law” under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).[58] In response to the injunctions, in June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the reasoning given for rescinding DACA was indeed arbitrary and capricious under the APA, but did not rule on the merits of the program or prevent the Trump Administration from issuing another rescission with a different rationale.[59]
DACA’s fate took another turn when Joe Biden was elected president and assumed office.[60] Following through on promises he made during the 2020 election campaign, Biden agreed to “fortify” the program and reinstated it as a proposed rule.[61] However, even after its reinstatement, lawsuits filed during the Trump Administration prevented would‑be applicants from applying to the program.[62] In July 2021, Texas brought another lawsuit related to DACA.[63] This time, the state argued that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) violated the APA when it initially created DACA.[64] District Judge Hanen agreed, ruling that DACA was illegal and the process through which the Obama Administration implemented it was in violation of the law.[65] This decision was appealed to the Fifth Circuit and, in February 2025, it affirmed Judge Hanen’s conclusion that “the part of DACA that provides employment authorization is unlawful” but disagreed with his injunction that it should be narrowed.[66] The case is back in the district court and could make its way to the Supreme Court, which immigration advocates fear will terminate the program.[67] In the meantime, current recipients can renew their status but newly eligible young people cannot apply.[68] Nonetheless, the second Trump Administration is doubling down on immigration enforcement as demonstrated by reports that DHS is urging DACA recipients to self‑deport.[69] Given this background, I now turn to the experiences of those navigating this ever‑changing status.
Immigrant Integration, Inclusion, and Belonging
Having outlined DACA’s history and the shifting legal and political landscape that continues to shape its implementation, the following Part situates these policy changes within a broader theoretical framework. In order to understand how DACA recipients navigate their lives, I briefly highlight social science literature on immigrant incorporation, belonging, and legal status historically and today. This includes tracing the evolution of theories of immigrant incorporation to show the processes through which newly arrived immigrants have integrated into American society as well as classic and contemporary approaches, such as segmented assimilation, which highlight the role of the context of reception. I then turn to literature on immigrant youth and legal status to examine how constricted legality structures opportunities, identities, and feelings of membership. Together, this literature grounds the themes that emerged in interviews discussed in Part V and addresses why different aspects of DACA’s legal precarity featured prominently in recipients’ narratives.
Research on the processes characterizing immigrant incorporation—and, relatedly, belonging—date back to the early to mid‑twentieth century.[70] Much of this scholarship focused primarily on whether immigrant newcomers were becoming part of the American fabric socially, economically, and politically.[71] This incorporation process was construed as one of two types: integration or assimilation. Integration was viewed as a two‑way process where immigrants adapted and contributed to the host society while still retaining elements of their culture, whereas assimilation was viewed as a one‑way, or straight‑line, process where immigrants shed their original culture and adopted the culture of the new society.[72] At the time, the straight‑line approach assumed immigrants and successive generations (i.e., their children and grandchildren) would gradually progress into the American mainstream until their distinct cultural traits disappeared.[73] They were considered fully assimilated when they were virtually indistinguishable from those born in the United States, as indicated by cultural markers such as customs, beliefs, and English language adoption; structural markers such as entry into social circles or intermarriage; and civic markers such as increased political engagement in the host society.[74] The assimilation‑based scholarship not only considered the social and economic processes that signaled immigrants had “melted” into the American melting pot, but also how much time and over how many generations that process was completed.[75]
Scholars later refined these theories, offering new insights into the process to include the influence of contextual dynamics such as how immigrants were received by the host society and the opportunities available or denied to them when they arrived.[76] These newer models moved away from straight‑line approaches and instead accounted for the structural realities of the economy and immigrants’ demographic profiles in determining whether they experienced assimilation, inclusion, and social mobility.[77] Segmented assimilation challenged the notion that assimilation was a linear process.[78] Instead, segmented assimilation describes a back‑and‑forth process where immigrants move toward incorporation as previous waves had done, but because of structural realities—brought about by industrial restructuring—their incorporation patterns reverted to previous stages.[79] Such a context, scholars argued, meant in the loss of manufacturing jobs due to outsourcing overseas, the rise of a service‑based economy requiring higher levels of human capital, and the decline of job opportunities in urban centers that had characterized the early to mid‑twentieth century.[80]
Segmented assimilation[81] also accounts for differences in the racial and ethnic profiles of more recent arrivals, the majority of whom migrated from the Global South (i.e., developing countries) to the Global North (i.e., developed countries).[82] While early waves of immigrants—especially those from South, Central, and Eastern Europe—faced overt hostility and exclusion when they first arrived in the United States and were considered unassimilable, prone to criminality, and burdens on public benefits, over time, they came to be viewed as white ethnics.[83] More recent waves of migrants are primarily from Latin American and Asian countries—also considered by some as unassimilable, criminals, and strains on social programs—but their nonwhiteness makes them distinct and even more susceptible to exclusion, racial profiling, and enhanced immigration enforcement.[84] Owing to these differences, scholars have called for a reconceptualization of immigrant incorporation that focuses less on assimilation and more on how immigrants’ demographic profiles affect incorporation patterns today.[85] Moreover, scholars emphasize that incorporation is a two‑way process between immigrants and members of the receiving society.[86] Also pertinent to the reconceptualization are the factors driving migration from the Global South to North, including neoliberal reforms and the consequences of global capitalism.[87]
Accounting for these changes to the global economy, children of immigrants—depending on their country of origin—may be as likely as their parents’ generation to face joblessness, underemployment, and skills that do not align with the demands of the economy. In turn, these conditions shape their prospects for integration and inclusion.[88] Recognizing the challenges created by blocked opportunities helps explain why some immigrant youth adopt the cultural practices and outlooks of their U.S.‑born peers. According to sociologists, this shift can be associated with downward rather than upward mobility.[89] Thus, social and economic disadvantage, perceived racial discrimination, language barriers, and cultural differences create many challenges for immigrant inclusion.[90]
For members of the 1.5 generation,[91] these challenges are exacerbated by the lack of legal status or liminal legality.[92] When layered onto educational and structural dynamics,[93] liminality has significant consequences for undocumented youth. It shapes their familial relationships, access to education or services, labor force participation, and broader sociocultural experiences.[94] For DACA recipients, liminality renders them in an especially indeterminate or in‑between position.[95] Because they are ineligible for citizenship, they face the same structural and legal barriers as other immigrants, including their parents or those ineligible for relief.[96] The irony of DACA, then, is that it provides opportunities that typically lead to improved economic prospects and social mobility via access to higher education and work authorization—as was the case for previous waves of immigrants—but, without citizenship, recipients are unable to achieve full incorporation in society.
Liminal legality also has implications for how young immigrants view themselves as well as their sense of belonging. Some social scientists have endeavored to understand their multilayered identities and experiences, noting that illegality—much like gender and race—is a master status. This means that characteristics, including educational access and attainment, race, place, and having DACA, shape aspects of their structural opportunities as well as their incorporation in society.[97] Viewed as multiple axes of advantage and disadvantage, “these auxiliary social locations, or statuses, matter for social and economic mobility as well as belonging.”[98] Other scholars emphasize the extent to which illegality intersects with certain aspects of undocumented youths’ experiences and identities—growing up poor, being first‑generation college students, and attending particular college campuses—and how these contribute to a sense of inclusion or exclusion.[99] Whether conceived as a master status or an intersectional identity, illegality has implications for undocumented youths’ sense of belonging and also their educational, economic, and mobility pathways.[100]
Legal scholars have also considered the intersections of immigration law, legal status, and belonging. In Borders and Belonging, legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura offers a framework for moving beyond traditional discussions of immigration law toward a deeper understanding of how law constructs or constrains immigrant belonging.[101] As part of his argument, Motomura distinguishes between two concepts: humanity claims and belonging claims.[102] Humanity claims, he argues, “are based on what all people should expect,” and the belief that “all people deserve respect and protection.”[103] Belonging claims are those based on “belonging to communities” where integration is essential, fostered, and valued. Immigration policies follow from these views.[104] Motomura further highlights the challenges of those with temporary or liminal statuses, including DACA recipients, urging resistance to the logic of exclusion when making determinations about who gets to stay and for how long.[105] In the current political climate where immigrants are vilified[106] and DACA—one of the few protections afforded to young people—remains politicized, litigated, and increasingly dismantled, both types of claims are crucial to understanding immigrant belonging.
The findings below show how being undocumented affected different facets of young immigrants’ lives before and after DACA: how they viewed themselves relative to U.S.‑born peers and family members, and whether they felt a sense of belonging. Depending on their age at arrival and the age at which they entered the U.S. public school system, participants reported that language barriers—namely, difficulty learning English—made them feel excluded. Others began to experience their liminal status when they were unable to take part in adolescent rites of passage such as getting driver’s licenses. Still others questioned their sense of belonging given the rhetoric and aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Moreover, participants’ narratives demonstrate the ways in which belonging claims are tied to experiences across the life course and continue to be shaped even after receiving deferred action.
Constricted Legality
As illuminated above, DACAmented youth and young adults occupy an interstitial space between legality and illegality. As legal scholar Ming Hsu Chen argues, U.S. immigration laws allow immigrants to enjoy some aspects of citizenship such as “informal claims to social belonging [which] might be accompanied by appeals for economic, social, political, and in some cases, legal incorporation” but prohibits their ability to gain “naturalized citizenship and state‑conferred rights and benefits.”[107] Migration scholar Cecilia Menjívar terms this in‑between space “liminal legality”[108] as it speaks to the marginal position inhabited by noncitizens who lack citizenship but who are not priorities for deportation. Similarly, sociologist Roberto Gonzales suggests immigrant youth who lack status live in a state of legal limbo in that they are provided some protections while being denied others.[109] Still others refer to undocumented immigrants as living in a state of transitory legality,[110] legal nonexistence,[111] or intensified liminal legality.[112] Furthermore, these are also individuals who “are often obliged to pay their way to access statuses that formally stave off banishment” and are subject to “heightened governmental monitoring” that leaves them “vulnerable to the discretionary decision‑making of public and private actors.”[113] What these concepts have in common is a recognition that immigrants’ statuses are precarious, causing them to live with reminders of their liminality. This includes having to renew DACA applications every two years[114] or fearing that their renewal will be denied, both of which take financial and emotional tolls.[115]
Building on the notion of liminality, I employ the concept of constricted legality to describe the legal predicament of DACA recipients. Like liminal legality, constricted legality aims to capture the fact that DACA youth and young adults are not citizens in the eyes of the law insofar as they are bound by their immigration status and lack the full rights and benefits of citizenship. Unlike liminal legality, however, which may be viewed as several points along a continuum and applies to a range of people with tenuous documentation statuses (e.g., temporary resident permit holders, asylum seekers, DACA recipients, undocumented immigrants, etc.), constricted legality is a social reality or state at one end of the continuum that pertains specifically to DACA recipients. They are closer to legal than “illegal” but are still limited in their ability to become full‑fledged members of society.[116]
At the same time, constricted legality captures how DACA affords recipients a limited set of opportunities unavailable to other immigrants, including parents and those who did not qualify, while temporarily reducing the visibility or consequences of their “undocumented‑ness.” These benefits allow recipients to participate more fully in school, work, and daily life, positioning them as the least vulnerable of the vulnerable.[117] However, the young people I interviewed continued to confront the limits of their tenuous status in relation to peers, family members, and coworkers, as well as their longstanding residence in the United States and attenuated ties to their countries of origin. In this regard, they are among the least vulnerable of the vulnerable. These dynamics demonstrate why an analytic frame like constricted legality is needed to interpret their experiences and guide the study’s methodological approach outlined in the next Part.
Methodology
After receiving approval from the University of Denver Institutional Review Board (IRB),[118] I began recruiting participants for the study using a multipronged approach. First, I identified colleges and universities in the state with a high proportion of Latinx or foreign‑born students and at colleges or universities known to have offices or support services for undocumented students. If they had those services, I contacted a staff member there and asked them to circulate my recruitment flyer that contained a request for participants who fit the study criteria, the purpose of the study, and my contact information. I also recruited through social networks and contacts working at immigrant‑serving organizations as well as immigration attorneys and other community leaders. After conducting a small number of interviews, I relied on snowball or respondent‑driven sampling where participants shared my information with their networks and, if participants were interested in being interviewed, contacted me about participating in the study.[119]
Data collection proceeded in two waves from 2012 to 2013 and 2016 to 2018, resulting in a total of fifty‑nine in‑depth interviews with undocumented youth and young adults living in Colorado. The majority came to the United States as infants or children under the age of ten.[120] Of those, thirty‑eight identified as female and twenty‑one identified as male. Participants ranged in age from in their teens to early thirties, with a mean age of 23.4 years,[121] about the age young people transition into early adulthood, graduate from college, and find full‑time jobs.[122] In terms of educational attainment, most were in college (n=36) or were college graduates (n=16) at the time of the interviews.[123] Similar to the demographics of Colorado where a majority of the Latinx population is of Mexican descent,[124] most participants were born in Mexico and identified as Mexican or Latinx.[125] Although some participants lived in rural Colorado and one was living out of state at the time of the interviews, the sample is disproportionately from urban areas along the Front Range where most sectors requiring at least some college education are concentrated.[126] By contrast, the Western Slope relies heavily on immigrant labor for the winter tourism industry.[127]
Most of the participants had applied for or received DACA during the first wave of interviews conducted between 2012 and 2013. Two participants missed the cutoff for DACA eligibility by a few months, one was eligible but chose not to apply, two received DACA status but later lost it due to misdemeanors for DUIs,[128] and at least five gained legal permanent residency through marriage or family sponsorship over the course of the study. During the second wave of interviews spanning from 2016 to 2018, all participants who were eligible had reapplied for DACA status or were in the process of reapplying for the second or third time.[129]
In interviews,[130] participants were asked a range of questions including ones about why their families migrated, their schooling experiences from childhood to the present, their work experiences, and their political involvement. They were also asked questions about how DACA affected their lives in each of these domains. I also asked their perspectives about the impact of the lead up to and outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Interviews were transcribed and coded for recurrent, salient themes through an iterative process. To maintain confidentiality, I use pseudonyms.[131]
Narratives
Among the participants I interviewed, some described DACA as bringing them one step closer to full integration and belonging in the United States while others felt it only solidified what they had long believed: That, despite their legal status, they were fully American. As noted in the Introduction, when President Obama announced DACA, he characterized would‑be recipients as young people who were “Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”[132] For some participants, deferred action provided a form of validation, and even without the ability to obtain citizenship, DACA approval fostered a greater sense of belonging and integration. Others continued to struggle with the extent to which they felt accepted and included rather than rejected and excluded.[133] The findings below focus on a subset of ten participants whose narratives best illustrate how constricted legality shapes experiences across the life course. To organize the discussion, the interviews are divided into three thematic sections. Section V.A. examines linguistic inclusion and exclusion, showing how English proficiency and bilingualism affected participants’ social integration and identity formation.[134] Section V.B. highlights educational and occupational trajectories, including blocked opportunities, delayed milestones, and DACA transitions.[135] Section V.C. explores socioemotional well-being, capturing experiences of shame, feeling nationless, and strategies for negotiating belonging.[136] Together, these sections show how constricted legality structures participants’ opportunities, social recognition, and sense of belonging.
Negotiating Others’ Perceptions: Linguistic Inclusion and Exclusion
Participants shared their experiences in early childhood and how those affected their sense of belonging in relation to language barriers in school, loss of cultural ties, and fear of having to return to their country of origin. Even in schools that served predominantly Latinx and bilingual students, one of the biggest challenges they worked to overcome was language differences between themselves and their peers. In elementary school, legal status did not present any barriers to participants’ ability to receive an education,[137] but linguistic differences did, as being placed in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes or English immersion classes made it difficult to fit in with their peers.
As participants learned English, they gained acceptance from peers and access to educational opportunities, but becoming more fluent came at a cost. Several participants noted that they felt pressure to distance themselves from their families, heritage language, and cultural touchstones in order to fit in. At the same time, this put them at odds with their parents who feared their children were becoming too acculturated or Americanized. Consequently, the process of “Americanizing” required them to navigate a linguistic tightrope where learning English simultaneously became a tool of inclusion and exclusion relative to peers and family members, respectively.[138] Moreover, participants recognized that, to their U.S.‑born peers, they were not fully American because they were bilingual or spoke English with an accent; yet, given teasing from Spanish‑speaking relatives in their home country, they were also cognizant that they could never return having lost some fluency.[139]
Twenty‑five‑year‑old Emilio[140] is a case in point. He and his family migrated to the United States when he was ten, older than many study participants’ age at arrival.[141] Emilio’s parents settled in a metropolitan area along the Front Range where they had other family members. As a child, his parents followed a cyclical pattern of migration where they worked in Colorado for short periods of time before returning to Mexico City. Emilio assumed they would repeat this pattern, but, after more than a decade of migrating, they decided to stay permanently. This meant Emilio would be switching to an American public school. Of that time, Emilio said, “I definitely felt out of place, just ‘cause, like, I felt like I didn’t belong there mainly because I didn’t speak the language, so I couldn’t talk to anybody else. I couldn’t even do the homework my other classmates were doing.” Emilio went on to explain how frustrating it was to not be able to do the same work as his classmates, stating that “being different was weird, ‘cause I was getting pulled out of class like in the middle of the day to get to my ESL classes.”
After a year and a half, Emilio gained English proficiency and was no longer required to attend ESL classes. Nonetheless, while he became more fluent in English, it did little to help him feel as though he fit in. When asked to explain, Emilio offered,
Well, it’s just, everything was so different. I guess everybody thought I was different. I didn’t speak English 100 percent well, you know? I still have my accent, so that also contributed to me not feeling completely in place. And just the culture itself as well, you know, the atmosphere at school. I felt like I didn’t belong there.
Emilio admitted that, although things began to improve in middle school in terms of his language acquisition skills, it was not enough to overcome his sense that he did not belong or have many friends. Emilio attributed these sentiments to the culture shift from Mexico to the United States:
Middle school was kind of tough for me ‘cause I was still trying to adjust to the new culture, to the new place we were in. And I think that also had a lot of influence on me not making friends. I didn’t have tons of friends during that time. And I thought people didn’t like me ‘cause, you know, I was different, or whatever. And so I kind of was like, the quiet guy for a little bit.
Emilio’s reflections illustrate how early experiences of exclusion—rooted in language barriers and cultural dislocation—resulted in a durable sense of not belonging that persisted even after he became fluent in English. His perception that others viewed him as different exemplifies how belonging is not only linked to legal status but also to everyday interactions that signify who is considered as fully part of the school community. While not yet fully confronting the legal constraints of his undocumented status, these formative experiences show the impact of constricted legality long before young people directly engage with immigration policy. In other words, the linguistic and social barriers he encountered in middle school foreshadowed the legal and institutional ones that would further affect his sense of belonging.
Several participants articulated their sense of belonging based on linguistic ability, including twenty‑eight‑year‑old Jorge,[142] who was raised by his grandmother in Mexico while his mother sought work opportunities in the United States. After Jorge’s grandmother died, his mother sent for him and, at the age of thirteen, he entered school. Unlike other participants, Jorge’s transition to the American public school system was easier as his mother taught him some English that she learned from her own father, who worked as a migrant laborer. Jorge recounted that he attended ESL classes for a year and a half before being mainstreamed into an English‑speaking class. Over time, Jorge became more at ease in his classes, and, by high school, he began competing on the robotics team which eventually led him to an engineering degree. However, because he was undocumented, Jorge had difficulty finding a job and, instead, stayed at the fast‑food restaurant where he had worked since high school. A few years later, he applied for a part‑time job at an engineering firm, which eventually led to a full‑time position after he received DACA approval. Despite the challenges Jorge faced throughout his schooling and after college, his biggest concern was not his sense of belonging in the United States but the prospect of having to return to Mexico:
I feel that if I ever was to go back to the place where I used to live, I would not recognize it, and I would probably have a hard time trying to find my way around because it has changed. Even some of the pictures that I’ve seen, it has changed quite a lot. I also think that if I was ever to communicate with some of the people, or some of my friends that I used to talk to before, it would be a whole different mindset. And so, it does kind of give you that feeling that you don’t belong there or here.
Jorge’s narrative illustrates that linguistic inclusion—taking ESL classes and eventually becoming fluent in English—did not eliminate the social and legal barriers that he faced. While English proficiency allowed him to engage with peers and teachers more fully in school and pursue higher education, his undocumented status limited employment opportunities, leading to uncertainty about his future. Even as he advanced educationally and professionally, Jorge’s concern about potentially having to return to Mexico highlights the implications of constricted legality. As his experience shows, language skills can improve integration in some respects, but they do not eliminate the structural obstacles stemming from legal precarity.
Like participants who talked about their sense of belonging based on linguistic inclusion or exclusion or the internal conflict between how they viewed themselves versus how they thought others viewed them, nineteen‑year‑old Jazmine[143] had a similar experience. Jazmine’s mother was pregnant with her when she left for California to reunite with Jazmine’s father. Because he disliked living in the United States, they returned to Mexico shortly thereafter only to return three years later after Jazmine was born. This time, they settled in Colorado where Jazmine’s father had an uncle. At the age of four, Jazmine started preschool, and her family started a new life.
Years later, as a premed, public health major, Jazmine aspired to be a doctor and worked in a hospital to gain experience. She had struggled to get through college because of the high cost of tuition before the passage of the Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET) law[144] and the availability of the Colorado Opportunity Fund (COF), which provided undocumented students in‑state tuition at Colorado’s public universities and a small tuition stipend, respectively.
Even after receiving deferred action, she continued to worry about whether she would be able to attend medical school and about the fragility of the protections she relied on. Self‑described as “whitewashed,” Jazmine also worked to reconcile how she viewed herself relative to how others—patients, coworkers, and doctors at the hospital—viewed her. She pondered what being whitewashed signified to her, the benefits of knowing two languages, and what she termed “essential belonging”:
I speak more English than I do Spanish. Since I was little, I’ve always been thankful that I know two languages just because I feel like I know more than other people. You have kind of like a sense of two different cultures and you can identify yourself within, among a lot of people, which is more essential belonging, but still, they don’t want you. So, it’s hard to really say you belong somewhere when they don’t want you even though I do identify myself as pretty much an American. Because my English is perfect. Like, I am the American Dream. I don’t know why they don’t want me.
Across Emilio, Jorge, and Jazmine’s narratives, language acquisition and academic progress did not automatically correspond to a sense of belonging. Even as their English proficiency improved and they advanced in school or at work, each continued to feel out of place. As the “quiet guy,” Emilio remained marked as different by his peers while Jorge no longer felt he belonged in Mexico yet could not fully claim belonging in the United States. And Jazmine, who described herself as “pretty much an American,” was still perceived as an outsider despite her perfect English. Their experiences underscore the fact that gains in language, education, or opportunities did little to resolve the challenges of constricted legality. This partial and precarious legal standing shaped how others viewed them and how they viewed themselves, hindering their sense of inclusion. It also served as a reminder of the continual need to negotiate their legal status.
Belonging in Adolescence and Early Adulthood
While early childhood experiences and struggles over a sense of belonging were difficult for participants, the limitations of their undocumented status and “in‑betweenness” revealed themselves in several concrete ways and in different contexts. For example, adolescence and early adulthood marked the stage when participants’ sense of belonging began to erode. This occurred when they discovered they were undocumented or first understood the implications of their status, such as obtaining a driver’s license, securing a first job, or applying to college, which suddenly became inaccessible.[145] Reflecting on their lives prior to receiving DACA, participants spoke about feeling “nationless” or spoke about the chaos and emotional toll of not belonging. Some linked “belongingness” to their educational trajectories, while others had more positive perspectives on inclusion. But even after receiving DACA, some participants continued to struggle with their constricted legality.
For twenty‑three‑year‑old Nancy,[146] having a restricted driver’s license[147] brought shame, embarrassment, and made her feel excluded, especially when friends commented on it or when people made a big deal of never having seen one. Even though she had lived in the United States for two decades, Nancy felt detached from this country and from Mexico where she was born. She described feeling “nationless,” a sentiment she equated with the nationless children in Africa she learned about in high school or the Basque separatists in Spain, saying, “I really feel like a nationless person[148] because . . . obviously I speak Spanish, consider myself Mexican, like, roots are there but then I grew up here. But I’m not accepted by this society. I’m not accepted by most people sometimes, especially when I admit that I’m undocumented.”
In addition to feeling nationless, Nancy faced other forms of exclusion. This included high school organizations and scholarships reserved for Chicanx students or children of migrants but not for undocumented students like her. This prompted her to comment, “I’m always back and forth and I just feel neither here nor there accept me.” Later in the interview, Nancy admitted to getting defensive when others teased her about not being Mexican enough while also not feeling like she belonged among the people she grew up with. It was only after joining a DREAMer organization[149] that she developed a sense of belonging because, as Nancy explained, “I feel a community.”
Twenty‑seven‑year‑old Jacquie[150] also struggled with a sense of belonging. She described the chaotic journey north after her mother, who was already working in the United States, sent for her and her sister, leaving them little advance notice and only enough time to grab some of their belongings. Of the transition, Jacquie used the term “traumatic” in part because she was expected to switch quickly from what she knew as a private school student in Mexico to a public school student in America:
I feel like I would say [it was] traumatic, you know, for an eight‑year‑old who doesn’t understand, and their whole world just gets turned upside down. And coming from a country where it’s like—I mean, I just know the culture, I know the language, my family is there. It’s warmer [laughs]. And then coming here, I mean, it’s just total culture shock. You know, like, I didn’t know a single person, I didn’t want to leave my family, I didn’t know the language. I was just told to grab my things . . . and go.
After receiving deferred status, Jacquie returned to school to earn a college degree, which brought a mix of emotions ranging from relief that there were some protections in place for undocumented students like her to frustration that, at twenty‑seven, she was several years behind in her academic career. As we spoke, Jacquie was overcome with emotion several times throughout the interview and shared that she was in therapy working through some of the issues she carried. After pausing to compose herself, she shared:
I have a therapist that I’ve been seeing for a couple of years. We just like, have come down to the conclusion that . . . just the shame and the guilt that I’ve carried, I’ve carried it for years, because I’ve always thought like, ‘There’s something wrong with you,’ where I come from, and sometimes I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t even know why we came here.’ It’s been so hard.
Jacquie was not alone in experiencing emotional distress due to her undocumented status. Undocumented youth and young adults who migrate as children and spend their formative years in the United States often struggle with the toll of seeking inclusion while simultaneously experiencing exclusion in school, the workplace, and among peers, which has important implications for their socioemotional health and well-being.[151] In some cases, real and perceived obstacles related to their legal status can lead to serious mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality.[152] For Jacquie, the combination of questioning her mother’s decision to leave Mexico and her feelings of exclusion adversely affected her mental health. She was also conflicted about how “looking American” afforded her certain privileges not available to other immigrants. Jacquie explained:
I guess I always like, “Okay, well, since I look like an American and I don’t have an accent, then I will be fine. No cops are ever gonna pull me over on the side of the street,” you know. This is the way we think when I was a child. But then it’s like, I don’t really care what I look like. I just care to be able to do the things that like, make me happy, and to make a difference in the world. I’m just as human as anyone else, and I grew up with you know, hopes and dreams, and I just feel like it’s been a lot harder for me to achieve those things, you know.
Nancy and Jacquie each experienced exclusion in different contexts, yet both were repeatedly reminded that their belonging was conditional. Nancy’s restricted license, a bouncer’s refusal to accept her ID, and peers questioning whether she was “Mexican enough” made her feel “nationless.” Jacquie felt culturally isolated after her family’s sudden migration, years of “staying below the radar” rather than going to college, and the shame she later worked through in therapy. Across these experiences, both had to navigate how others perceived them while reconciling their own sense of self. Their narratives exemplify how young immigrants—even DACA recipients—must manage the emotional and social burdens of partial inclusion.
Twenty‑two‑year‑old Nayeli[153] had a somewhat different experience than Nancy and Jacquie. Born in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Nayeli was two years old when she migrated to the United States along with her mother and one‑year‑old sister. They joined her father who had been living in the United States for seven years and supporting the family from wages earned as a seasonal worker. For years, Nayeli’s parents moved them back and forth between California and Utah in search of work.
Integrating into their new lives was challenging, particularly in Nayeli’s childhood. The elementary school she attended in Salt Lake City did not have a bilingual education or language immersion program and, consequently, Nayeli was placed in a mainstream classroom where she was one of only two students who did not speak English. Of this time, Nayeli said she felt “powerless,” but, little by little, she learned English. By second and third grade, she felt more proficient. Describing herself as “very studious,” Nayeli also began enjoying school, even though she did not feel challenged academically. By the time Nayeli entered high school, her family had moved to Colorado. This coincided with the stage in adolescence when many undocumented youths face obstacles due to their legal status.[154] For Nayeli, it meant losing out on a scholarship to attend college out of state. She was one of six students offered a full‑tuition scholarship sponsored by a philanthropist based in Aspen. But because the scholarship required recipients to have an F‑1 visa, she lost out on the opportunity.[155] Lacking anyone at school to help her navigate the process, Nayeli said, “I wanted to give up on everything and become a housekeeper like my mom.”
Prior to receiving DACA, Nayeli worked jobs where employers paid her in cash as she lacked a social security number. She worked as a personal assistant for an oil executive where the salary was substantial considering Nayeli was only nineteen years old, living at home, and had no major expenses except for school and personal care. Following stints working at a nonprofit organization for domestic violence victims and as a driver, Nayeli realized she needed a social security number and turned to her mother for help. By Nayeli’s account, she did not know how or where her mother obtained a social security card for her, but she never used it because DACA was announced one month later. She shared, “I didn’t know what [DACA] was, but I said, ‘Let’s do this. What do I need to do to make this happen?’”
Leaders of the student organization Nayeli belonged to encouraged her to wait until more details about the program were revealed, but she could not contain her excitement at the thought of not having to use a false social security number. Reflecting on that moment, Nayeli admitted feeling emotional thinking about how she felt when USCIS began accepting DACA applications. Perhaps recognizing the implications of receiving deferred action and being able to work and go to college, she recalled saying at the time, “Maybe we belong now.” To her, getting DACA was empowering and strengthened her identity as an undocumented person because “there is more power in saying undocumented than ‘American’ or ‘Mexican’ . . . . It provides a sense of community, it’s welcoming.” For Nayeli, in addition to opening windows of opportunity, being DACAmented held symbolic meaning and improved her sense of belonging.
Much like Nayeli, twenty‑four‑year‑old Ricardo had a more positive perspective about what belongingness meant to him. I first interviewed Ricardo[156] in 2013, nearly a year after he received DACA approval, and again in 2017, after he graduated from college. Like other participants, Ricardo clearly articulated his experiences and was also very thoughtful and philosophical about his status. Ricardo explained that his sense of belonging did not truly exist as his ties to various communities were, at best, tenuous—which he attributed to being undocumented, bicultural, and college educated. Ricardo described this sentiment as diverging from certain communities while also navigating toward others:
I think the sense of belonging doesn’t exist both in my Mexican community and like, the American community. I think in the Mexican community, it’s much less having to do with, like, the fact that I have DACA, or even the fact that I grew up in the U.S., because I think that there’s a creation of a community within the U.S. of individuals that are very much like us, that lack of sense of belonging, that then we create a community where we belong. But I think it has more to do with the fact that I’m the only person in my family that went to college, that even so far has graduated from high school.
As a college graduate, Ricardo’s educational attainment exceeded that of his family members, including his siblings, which also affected his sense of belonging. He continued:
[N]ot only was I born in Mexico, not only was I raised in the U.S., I also got an education in the U.S., a higher education. I think I even notice it with my siblings that further removes me from belonging with them because of our experiences diverging in such a way that the privilege of being educated and the privilege of having access to these opportunities has sort of drifted me further away from the experiences that the majority of my family, the majority of my community experiences. And so, with diverging, I go into this place where, I feel like I can navigate, and I can surround myself with—whether it’s American citizens that are Mexican or American citizens that are white . . . [and] I think I built a broad base of networks and friendships [in college] that kind of surpassed and kind of transcend many communities.
As the interview continued, Ricardo expanded on his ideas about the meaning of belonging, which changed after being approved for DACA. He explained:
When I still didn’t have DACA, it was a lot more present, the idea that I don’t belong because I’m undocumented. But I think, as I got DACA and as I started coming into the fact that I can work, the fact that I do belong wherever it is that I am because of the fact that I worked for it, I think that feeling of “I don’t belong because of the fact that I’m undocumented,” started kind of going into the background.
For Ricardo, a sense of belonging as well as the labels he most identified with evolved over his life course from adolescence to college and again in adulthood. It also changed in relation to family members, friends, and peers. With DACA, he developed an identity centered on his educational attainment, built community with a diverse network of friends, and transcended the boundaries of his undocumented status. But he and Nayeli were the exceptions as many participants felt excluded due to their undocumented status.
Belonging in the Aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election
The second wave of interviews took place from 2016 to 2018. This allowed me to capture how the rhetoric of the 2016 presidential election affected participants’ sense of belonging and in‑betweenness. And, because most of them had received deferred action at least a few years prior to 2016, I could better determine if their perspectives about belonging changed before and after receiving DACA. Among the findings, participants were negatively affected by what they perceived as anti‑immigrant rhetoric and feared what would happen if Donald Trump was elected president. After the election, as President Trump began implementing his restrictive immigration agenda,[157] some went so far as to make plans about what to do if they were deported to their country of origin.
Leslie[158] is one of several participants whose experiences were shaped by the political climate of 2016. A few days shy of her twenty‑fifth birthday and days before the presidential election, Leslie shared her experience of coming to the United States as a child. She recalled how her father moved her family from Mexico City to Colorado to find work and to escape the violence that was becoming rampant there. At age seven, Leslie was enrolled in a predominantly white school where she struggled to learn English as no one in her family—not her parents, aunts, uncles, or cousins—spoke it. Despite having positive thoughts about the United States when she first arrived, language barriers affected her subsequent view:
When I first saw the U.S., I thought it was like beautiful, you know. I thought it was like Barbie houses and everything you see on TV. But that image was broken when I first started going to school and I saw how mean people were ‘cause I didn’t speak English. So, kids were mean; teachers were mean. My teachers repeatedly told me that I couldn’t speak Spanish anymore, and they treated me very different.
Fueled by a desire to make friends and do well in school, Leslie learned English by translating her homework and investing countless hours on improving her language skills. After a year, not only did she begin to make friends, but others also began treating her differently. Later in the interview, Leslie credited her sense of belonging to other factors, including the upcoming presidential election:
I think belonging here, especially with the election that’s going on, like, basically Trump supporters coming out of the shadows and being really racist and being really discriminating towards a lot of Latinos . . . I think that’s . . . why I don’t belong. I feel like this country . . . still has a lot of, I guess, growing up to do, has a lot of ignorance still, we’re still very compartmentalized. And so yeah, right now, I don’t feel like I belong.
Angel[159] also expressed a sense of exclusion, which was largely informed by the charged political context stemming from the 2016 election. Looking back, Angel admitted that, at first, he did not pay much attention to the election, but, as Trump gained traction, won the Republican primary, and outlined a platform with several immigration‑related proposals[160]—including ending DACA—he grew concerned that Trump would follow through on this agenda if elected. He was also concerned that others would perceive him differently:
Before or during the election, I never thought [Trump] had a chance, honestly. And when he won, you know, it was very upsetting for me because I felt like people had, in a way, let me down and let everybody else down, because I just didn’t see how a person with those types of values was able to be elected, you know? So that was a big blow. I cried that night, I did. And then the next day when I got to work, it was really disturbing that I felt like most of the office was just looking at me. So that wasn’t a really nice feeling because I knew that everybody was kind of looking and being like, “Oh, you’re screwed,” you know, and being the only Hispanic in the office did make me feel uncomfortable.
In the days and weeks after the election, Angel shared that he began contemplating his future and grew increasingly wary that he would lose his job at a bank and have to return to working as a dishwasher, follow in his father’s footsteps working in construction, or, worse yet, return to Mexico. With the help of his father, Angel eventually put things into perspective and realized, whatever the outcome, his family would be there to support him. He also found outlets including political activism. Nonetheless, Angel continued to struggle with a sense of belonging. Toward the end of the interview, he shared additional insights about being undocumented:
You know, it’s definitely not easy being undocumented, and a lot of times, you never realize what your status is until a door is shut in your face pretty much. And at that point, that’s when you realize, “Well, I’m not like everybody else.” And I personally always felt that I don’t belong here. It’s really hard to kind of have the best worlds, I guess, you could put it that way. You know, having your Mexican culture and the American culture, a lot of times it’s kind of . . . you’re stuck in‑between.
In hindsight, Angel expressed resentment toward elected officials for their inability to pass legislation that went beyond DACA’s provisions prior to 2016 when they had the chance.[161] Angel’s concerns about Donald Trump were justified; eight months after being inaugurated, the Trump Administration rescinded DACA, sparking a legal battle that continues to this day.[162]
I met siblings Marisol and Bee,[163] ages twenty‑five and twenty‑three, respectively, in 2018. As the last participants interviewed for this study, their responses were steeped in a different reality than all the previous ones because, rather than speaking in hypotheticals about what would happen if Donald Trump was elected president, he already had been. Their comments were therefore informed by the realization that President Trump was intent on following through on his campaign promises focusing primarily on restrictive immigration policies.[164] Indeed, it had been nearly a year since DACA was rescinded when I interviewed them. At the beginning of the interview, they discussed their sense of belonging in relation to delayed rites of passage, such as getting their driver’s licenses, but the 2016 election and its aftermath also affected them. The sisters described the roller coaster of emotions from having to navigate their illegality as youths to enjoying the benefits of deferred action in their late teens to being legally precarious again or “DACAlimited”[165] as twenty‑somethings. Marisol and Bee recounted the uncertainty and constant worry that something was going to happen to them, which not only affected their sense of belonging but made it difficult to plan for the future:
M: I feel like one day we’re like, “Yeah, we’re fine, nothing’s gonna happen,’ and then the next day something happens, and we’re like—”
B: On the news, we’re like, “What are we gonna do? What’s gonna happen? We need to have a back‑up plan,” and then the next day, it’s like, “Oh no, we’re fine, we can stay here.” It’s always like . . . you’re not stable. You have to worry all the time. Either we’re gonna be fine, or we’re not gonna be fine.
The sisters also shared how others’ attitudes toward them changed since the election as they found themselves on the receiving end of “jokes” and bullying about being targets for deportation. Bee recalled one experience where an intern at her workplace commented, “So you’re Mexican and Trump’s gonna kick you out.” For Bee, the intern’s comment was a reminder that the rhetoric from the election was spilling over into everyday life. It was also a reminder of her constricted legality, meaning that, while she is eligible for protections that DACA provides—ones that are out of reach for other immigrants—she remains ineligible for citizenship.
Participants’ narratives highlight how their sense of belonging was affected by the precarious relationship between legal exclusion, the context of reception, and the broader political milieu.[166] While each struggled to find their place in the world as children and adolescents, the charged atmosphere leading up to, during, and after the 2016 presidential election further compounded the sense of uncertainty about their place in American society well into early adulthood. Moreover, President Trump’s rhetoric and policy priorities[167] brought a heightened sense of fear. DACA status mitigated some of the obstacles they navigated, but, symbolically, it did little to assuage their sense of exclusion.
Conclusion
Legal reforms like DACA can go a long way toward removing structural barriers that impede young immigrants’ social, educational, and economic integration. But short of legalization, they do not mitigate the sense of exclusion and “in‑betweenness” participants described in interviews, nor do they mitigate their constricted legality. The paradox of DACA is that, like immigrants with Temporary Protected Status,[168] recipients are afforded certain protections, including being deprioritized for removal, but their lives are circumscribed by “discretionary decisions [of] government officials, who may deny an individual grant or renewal.”[169] And while recipients were originally low priorities for deportation, that may no longer be the case in the second Trump Administration.[170] This speaks to what constricted legality does on a structural level. It fragments identity, produces anxiety, and forces people to justify their deservingness and worthiness to a system that is designed not to affirm, but to exclude. Moreover, because DACA is fragile,[171] recipients experience a legal ceiling constructed of law, policy, and public sentiment.
Hiroshi Motomura argues that we must move away from the transactional logic of immigration as contract.[172] If we are serious about belonging, then the legal system must recognize what is already true in fact: Millions of undocumented and quasi‑documented people are already part of the American fabric.[173] The challenge is not only to legalize their status, but to reimagine a legal framework that reflects the moral weight of their presence as well as their societal contributions. Constricted legality helps name our failure in doing so while describing how the law manages people without accepting them, how it uses legality to both recognize and marginalize. It also forces us to reckon with how the law constructs liminality, not as a temporary status, but as a durable condition.[174]
How do we respond to young immigrants’ belonging and humanity claims as social scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners? First, we must interrogate the legal architecture that produces indeterminate statuses like DACA and ask why liminality is preferred over citizenship, permanence, or indefinite residence. Second, we must not rely on status to recognize belonging but, instead, develop doctrine, advocacy, and policy that center lived realities rather than merely complex legal categories.[175]
Finally, we must treat belonging and humanity not as fringe concepts but as essential to the legitimacy of immigration law itself. As Motomura reminds us, law is not just a mirror of national values, it informs them.[176] If we want a legal system that truly reflects the communities we live in, the people who make laws must be willing to confront and dismantle the logics that keep belonging out of reach for DACAmented immigrants by providing them opportunities to become Americans on paper.
It is undeniable that DACA has transformed lives by allowing more than half a million young people[177] the opportunity to attend college, launch careers, and start families since it was implemented.[178] However, we ought to view DACA as a window into the broader failures of a broken immigration system, one that sorts individuals not just by national origin or skill but by deeply racialized, classed, and moralized notions of worth and deservingness.[179] Until we recognize the limits of immigration law and move beyond the conditionality of programs like DACA, we remain complicit in a system that offers hope with one hand and holds it hostage with the other. Given the current political climate where even legal immigrants are in danger of being apprehended, detained, and deported, the protections DACA once afforded no longer suffice. What is needed instead are viable, long‑term solutions to address recipients’ constricted legality—ones that require acts of Congress, political will, advocacy, and social action. This includes reinstating DACA for newly eligible young people, expanding pathways to mobility via educational and occupational opportunities, and, most importantly, developing a process for immigrants to obtain citizenship.[180]
* Professor of Sociology & Criminology, University of Denver. I wish to thank Madison Dobson, Colleen Garcia, Julia O’Rourke, Gabriella Pantoja, Sydney Poppe, McKenzie Porter, Olivia Visio, and the entire CLR team for their invaluable feedback and support throughout the review and production process. Thanks also to Deep Gulasekaram for the opportunity to present a version of this Article at the Rothgerber Immigration Conference in April 2025 and to the young people who participated in the study.
- The “best and brightest” and exceptional frames have been employed by elected officials in public discourse and in media coverage of proposed legislation or policy proscriptions for young immigrants, including the DREAM Act and DACA. See Luis Miranda, Get the Facts on the DREAM Act, White House: President Barack Obama (Dec. 1, 2010, at 7:19 PM), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/12/01/get-facts-dream-act [https://perma.cc/A5V4-73GF]; Terry W. Hartle, The Dreamers Are a Good Part of America’s Future, Wall St. J. (July 25, 2017, at 1:04 PM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dreamers-are-a-good-part-of-americas-future-1501002274 [https://perma.cc/MQC6-SVDP]; Doug Dickerson, Power to the Doers and Dreamers; Unleashing the Best and Brightest, Int’l Bus. Times (Aug. 16, 2010, at 2:05 PM), https://www.ibtimes.com/power-doers-dreamers-unleashing-best-brightest-193274 [https://perma.cc/SU78-Z2QM]; Gabrielle Levy, Obama: Trump’s DACA Decision ‘Cast a Shadow’ of Deportation Over ‘Best and Brightest’, U.S. News: Pol. (Sep. 5, 2017, at 4:44 PM), https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-09-05/obama-trumps-daca-decision-cast-a-shadow-of-deportation-over-best-and-brightest [https://perma.cc/US62-VWWG]. This language was also used by Senator Lindsey Graham when he proposed Senate Bill 3542, or the Bar Removals of Individuals who Dream and Grow our Economy (BRIDGE) Act, in 2016. S. 3542, 114th Cong. (2016); Press Release, Lindsey Graham, Graham, Durbin Reintroduce BRIDGE Act to Protect Undocumented Youth From Deportation (Jan. 12, 2017), https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/1/graham-durbin-reintroduce-bridge-act-to-protect-undocumented-youth-from-deportation [https://perma.cc/6Y42-85WP]. The BRIDGE Act would have provided “provisional protected presence” to young immigrants, including DACA recipients, who arrived in the United States as children, meaning they would not be considered unlawfully present if their BRIDGE Act application was granted. Ellen E. Findley, Bridging the Gap Between DACA and the DREAM: The BRIDGE Act, What It Means, and Why It Matters, 7 Penn St. J.L. & Int’l Affs. 304, 305 n.4 (2019). ↑
- For a discussion of the consequences of these frames, see Genevieve Negrón‑Gonzales et al., Introduction: Immigrant Latina/o Youth and Illegality: Challenging the Politics of Deservingness, Ass’n Mex.‑Am. Educators, 2015, at 7, 8–9; Marie L. Mallet‑García & Lisa García‑Bedolla, Immigration Policy and Belonging: Ramifications for DACA Recipients’ Sense of Belonging, 65 Am. Behav. Sci. 1165, 1169–73 (2021); Nancy YeonJoo Kim, Deserving to Belonging: How and Why Immigrant Advocacy Organizations Change Their Framing of Immigrants (Nov. 15, 2024) (Ph.D. dissertation, American University School of International Service) (ProQuest). ↑
- Barack Obama, Remarks by the President on Immigration, White House: President Barack Obama (June 15, 2012), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/15/remarks-president-immigration [https://perma.cc/E7MJ-AD9U] (providing President Obama’s speech published via press release). ↑
- For a discussion of why “no decision of their own” and deservingness frames are problematic, see Katie Dingeman‑Cerda et al., Neither Sinners nor Saints: Complicating the Discourse of Noncitizen Deservingness, Ass’n Mex.‑Am. Educators, 2015, at 62, 62. ↑
- See generally Walter J. Nicholls, The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigrant Rights Debate (2013) (discussing this theme throughout). ↑
- Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Who Can Be Considered?, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec.: News Archive [hereinafter Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2012/08/15/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-who-can-be-considered [https://perma.cc/896G-P3AC] (last updated Apr. 10, 2025). ↑
- Marisa Bono, When a Rose Is Not a Rose: DACA, the DREAM Act, and the Need for More Comprehensive Immigration Reform, 40 T. Marshall L. Rev. 193, 207 (2015). ↑
- See Key Facts on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), KFF, https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/key-facts-on-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca [https://perma.cc/E4Y8-FAKB] (last updated July 1, 2025) (describing how DACA’s purpose is to protect eligible young adults from deportation and “to provide them with work authorization for temporary, renewable periods,” not to be a pathway to permanent residency or getting a green card). ↑
- See Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, supra note 6; Memorandum from Janet Napolitano, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children (July 15, 2012), www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/s1-exercising-prosecutorial-discretion-individuals-who-came-to-us-as-children.pdf [https://perma.cc/W5XC-RVQ3]. ↑
- Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America 57 (William Chafe et al. eds., 2004); see also Roberto G. Gonzales & Leo R. Chavez, “Awakening to a Nightmare”: Abjectivity and Illegality in the Lives of Undocumented 1.5‑Generation Latino Immigrants in the United States, 53 Current Anthropology 255, 257 (2012). ↑
- Oswaldo Moreno et al., Psychological Impact, Strengths, and Handling the Uncertainty Among Latinx DACA Recipients, 49 Counseling Psych. 728, 736–37 (2021); see also Caitlin Patler et al., The Limits of Gaining Rights While Remaining Marginalized: The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and the Psychological Well‑Being of Latina/o Undocumented Youth, 100 Soc. Forces 246, 261–64 (2021). ↑
- Cecilia Menjívar, Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States, 111 Am. J. Socio. 999, 1008 (2006). ↑
- Eligibility for Non‑U.S. Citizens, Fed. Student Aid: Understand Aid, https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/eligibility/requirements/non-us-citizens [https://perma.cc/NE7Y-K7KP]. ↑
- Roberto G. Gonzales et al., Immigr. Initiative at Harv. & Nat’l UnDACAmented Rsch. Project, The Long‑Term Impact of DACA: Forging Futures Despite DACA’s Uncertainty 12, 23, 29 (2019). ↑
- Tanya Broder, Nat’l Immigr. L. Ctr., Basic Facts About In‑State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrant Students 2 (2025), https://www.nilc.org/resources/basic-facts-instate [https://perma.cc/JJF9-2YKD]; see also Roberto G. Gonzales, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (2016). ↑
- Raul A. Reyes, MALDEF Files Lawsuit, Alleging Discrimination Based on DACA Status, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/maldef-files-lawsuits-alleging-discrimination-based-daca-status-n866321 [https://perma.cc/TN8V-RSYJ] (last updated May 4, 2018, at 6:21 AM) (explaining how some people, like small business owners, might be unfamiliar with DACA and a case about discrimination due to DACA); Roberto G. Gonzales & Veronica Terriquez, Immigr. Pol’y Ctr. & Ctr. for the Study of Immigrant Integration, How DACA Is Impacting the Lives of Those Who Are Now DACAmented (2013), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/daca_final_ipc_csii_1.pdf [https://perma.cc/EY2R-UJSW]. ↑
- See, e.g., Gonzalez et al., supra note 14, at 32. ↑
- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), DACA recipients are disproportionately uninsured. Key Facts on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), supra note 8. The National Immigration Law Center reports that this is due to a combination of factors such as prior eligibility restrictions on federal health coverage through Medicaid, CHIP, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), fear that using medical services could hurt their or a family member’s immigration status, concerns that applications and paperwork are too complicated, and distrust in government programs. See Isobel Mohyeddin, Nat’l Immigr. L. Ctr., DACA Recipients’ Access to Health Care: 2024 Report 2 (2024), https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NILC_DACA-Report_2024_06-27-24.pdf [https://perma.cc/38YZ-967C]; Jin K. Park et al., DACA, Public Health, and Immigrant Restrictions on Healthcare in the United States, Lancet Reg. Health–Ams., May 2023, at 1, 2. ↑
- Edelina M. Burciaga & Aaron Malone, Intensified Liminal Legality: The Impact of the DACA Rescission for Undocumented Young Adults in Colorado, 46 Law & Soc. Inquiry 1092, 1092, 1100 (2021). ↑
- Phillip Connor, New Data Analysis Shows 28 Million People, Including Nearly 20 Million Latinos, Are at Risk of Family Separation in 2025, FWD.us (Oct. 24, 2024), https://www.fwd.us/news/mixed-status-families-oct [https://perma.cc/2RP9-J9RJ]. ↑
- Roberto G. Gonzales et al., Becoming DACAmented: Assessing the Short‑Term Benefits of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), 58 Am. Behav. Sci. 1852, 1853 (2014). ↑
- Cecilia Menjívar & Leisy J. Abrego, Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants, 117 Am. J. Socio. 1380, 1381 (2012). ↑
- Leisy J. Abrego, Immigration Law and Immigrants’ Lived Experiences, in The Handbook of Law and Society 330, 339–41 (Austin Sarat & Patricia Ewick eds., 2015). ↑
- In media representations, immigrants are often portrayed as deserving or undeserving of relief, as criminals, or, more recently, as inhumane, backward, and other. See Alexander Burns, Choice Words from Donald Trump, Presidential Candidate, N.Y. Times: First Draft (June 16, 2015, at 2:01 PM), https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/16/choice-words-from-donald-trump-presidential-candidate [https://perma.cc/5HPQ-84E9]. ↑
- Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): Establishment of DACA, Sandra Day O’Connor College of L., Ariz. State Univ: LibGuides, https://libguides.law.asu.edu/DACA/history [https://perma.cc/TEH4-RMJX] (last updated May 16, 2025, at 10:53 AM). ↑
- The 1.5 generation refers to the children of immigrants who were born outside the United States but came as children and spent their formative years in the United States. While it is a demographic category rather than a legal status, making it difficult to track actual numbers, estimates suggest immigrant‑origin children comprise 27 percent of the child population in the United States. See First and Second Generation, Immigr. Initiative at Harv., https://immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu/topic/first-and-second-generation [https://perma.cc/65UZ-WPR7]. See generally Rubén G. Rumbaut, Generation 1.5, Educational Experiences Of, in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education (James A. Banks ed., 2012) (defining the 1.5 generation). ↑
- Alejandro Mayorkas, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Who Can Be Considered?, White House: President Barack Obama (Aug. 15, 2012, at 11:55 AM), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/08/15/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-who-can-be-considered [https://perma.cc/PS9E-N548]. Applicants must: (1) have arrived in the United States before their sixteenth birthday; (2) have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007; (3) were under the age of thirty-one as of June 15, 2012; (4) have entered the United States without inspection before June 15, 2012, or lawful immigration status expired as of June 15, 2012; (5) be currently in high school, have graduated high school, obtained a GED, or be an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces; (6) not have been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors, and not otherwise pose a threat; (7) were present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making the request for consideration of deferred action. Id. ↑
- See Broder, supra note 15, at 2 (describing DACA recipient’s ability to attend college). ↑
- FAQ: DACA and Dreamers, FWD.us, https://www.fwd.us/daca-101 [https://perma.cc/9CYM-WHSQ]. ↑
- DREAM stands for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. See Am. Immigr. Council, The DREAM Act: An Overview (2024), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the_dream_act_-_an_overview_2024.pdf [https://perma.cc/MMC4-6567]. Some states have passed their own versions of the DREAM Act, providing undocumented students access to in‑state tuition and state financial aid. See id. ↑
- Id. at 2. ↑
- Favorability transcended demographic and partisan lines. See Yalidy Matos, The “American DREAM”: Understanding White Americans’ Support for the DREAM Act and Punitive Immigration Policies, 19 Persps. on Pol. 422, 422 (2020). ↑
- In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the American public’s attitudes towards immigration shifted and, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, elected officials moved away from legislation and policies favoring immigrants, including the DREAM Act, to ones emphasizing enforcement. See generally Paul M. Sherer, Immigr. Pol’y Ctr., Targets of Suspicion: The Impact of Post‑9/11 Policies on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians in the United States, Immigr. Pol’y Focus, May 2004, at 1. ↑
- There have been at least twenty versions of the DREAM Act introduced to Congress since 2001. Am. Immigr. Council, supra note 30, at 2. The DREAMer moniker refers to the young people who would have benefitted from the DREAM Act. Id. ↑
- Daniel Bush, Congress Has Tried to Protect ‘Dreamers’ Before. Will This Time Be Different?, PBS News (Sep. 8, 2017, at 7:55 PM), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/congress-tried-protect-dreamers-will-time-different [https://perma.cc/A2GP-8H4T]. ↑
- Am. Immigr. Council, supra note 30, at 2 (explaining how the DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, did not become law during Obama’s presidency, nor has it become law since). ↑
- Russell Heimlich, Latinos Overwhelmingly Support DREAM Act, Pew Rsch. Ctr.: Short Reads (July 9, 2012), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2012/07/09/latinos-overwhelmingly-support-dream-act [https://perma.cc/DX3B-ZFZZ]; see also Julia Preston & Fernanda Santos, A Record Latino Turnout, Solidly Backing Obama, N.Y. Times (Nov. 7, 2012), https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/us/politics/with-record-turnout-latinos-solidly-back-obama-and-wield-influence.html [https://perma.cc/372S-Q9GB] (describing how pivotal Latino voters were to Obama’s 2012 election). ↑
- President Obama announced DAPA in November 2014. See Randy Capps et al., Urb. Inst. & Migration Pol’y Inst., Deferred Action for Unauthorized Immigrant Parents: Analysis of DAPA’s Potential Effects on Families and Children 1 (2016), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/DAPA-Profile-FINALWEB.pdf [https://perma.cc/NBC3-786B]. Like DACA, the proposed DAPA program was intended to provide temporary relief from deportation and work authorization to certain parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Id. It was blocked by legal challenges and never implemented. Muzaffar Chishti & Faye Hipsman, Supreme Court DAPA Ruling a Blow to Obama Administration, Moves Immigration Back to Political Realm, Migration Pol’y Inst. (June 29, 2016), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/supreme-court-dapa-ruling-blow-obama-administration-moves-immigration-back-political-realm [https://perma.cc/A8RA-HA4L]. ↑
- Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 146 (5th Cir. 2015); see also Ming H. Chen, Beyond Legality: The Legitimacy of Executive Action in Immigration Law, 66 Syracuse L. Rev. 87, 134–43 (2016). ↑
- Texas v. United States, 86 F.Supp.3d 591, 677–78 (S.D. Tex. 2015), aff’d, 809 F.3d 134 (5th Cir. 2015). ↑
- Adam Liptak & Michael D. Shear, Supreme Court Tie Blocks Obama Immigration Plan, N.Y. Times (June 23, 2016), https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/us/supreme-court-immigration-obama-dapa.html [https://perma.cc/EB6Q-JB8B]. ↑
- See Laurence Benenson, Fact Sheet: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Nat’l Immigr. F. (May 21, 2024), https://forumtogether.org/article/fact-sheet-on-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca [https://perma.cc/ZM74-3JBQ]; Audrey Singer & Nicole Prchal Svajlenka, Brookings Metro. Pol’y Program, Immigration Facts: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) (2013), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DACA_singer_svajlenka_FINAL.pdf [https://perma.cc/7US3-GG26]. ↑
- Singer & Svajlenka, supra note 42, at 8. ↑
- Tom K. Wong et al., 2023 Survey of DACA Recipients Highlights Economic Advancement, Continued Uncertainty amid Legal Limbo, Ctr. for Am. Progress (Mar. 25, 2024), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/2023-survey-of-daca-recipients-highlights-economic-advancement-continued-uncertainty-amid-legal-limbo [https://perma.cc/DS7E-APYY] (detailing survey results that found 73.5 percent of DACA respondents were pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher while 49.5 percent of respondents not currently in school already had at least a bachelor’s degree). ↑
- See Gonzales et al., supra note 21, at 1860, 1866–67. ↑
- Briana Ballis, Research Shows that DACA Benefits Both Dreamers and Their US‑Born Peers, Brookings Inst. (Oct. 7, 2024), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/research-shows-that-daca-benefits-both-dreamers-and-their-us-born-peers [https://perma.cc/NU3Q-QKLV]. ↑
- Jeanne Batalova et al., Migration Pol’y Inst., DACA at the Two Year Mark: A National and State Profile of Youth Eligible and Applying for Deferred Action 17 (2014), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/DACA-Report-2014-FINALWEB.pdf [https://perma.cc/AHX4-V5DV]. ↑
- Compare Ballis, supra note 46 (describing improved educational outcomes), with Batalova et al., supra note 47 (outlining improved occupational outcomes). ↑
- During the 2016 presidential election, immigration figured prominently among the two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was vocal in her support for DACA recipients while also vowing to pass comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship, if elected, while Donald Trump was vocal about rescinding the DACA program. See Wendy Feliz, Tracking Hillary Clinton’s Promises on Immigration Reform, Am. Immigr. Council (July 15, 2016), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/hillary-clinton-immigration-reform [https://perma.cc/S8UE-NQGM]; Donald Trump Presidential Campaign, 2016/DACA and DAPA, Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016/DACA_and_DAPA [https://perma.cc/9L39-UU2K] (last updated 2016). ↑
- Andrew Mercer et al., Why 2016 Election Polls Missed Their Mark, Pew Rsch. Ctr.: Short Reads (Nov. 9, 2016), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/why-2016-election-polls-missed-their-mark [https://perma.cc/V8RY-SFJ7]; Katie Reilly, Here’s What President Trump Has Said About DACA in the Past, Time (Sep. 5, 2017, at 10:00 AM), https://time.com/4927100/donald-trump-daca-past-statements [https://perma.cc/UPH6-2PDR]. ↑
- See Michael D. Shear & Helene Cooper, Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7 Muslim Countries, N.Y. Times (Jan. 27, 2017, at 10:06 AM), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/trump-syrian-refugees.html [https://perma.cc/3TK6-428X]. One of Trump’s first official acts as President was to sign an executive order banning migrants from six Muslim‑majority countries and indefinitely suspending the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Id. ↑
- CBS Tex., Sessions: Program Known as DACA Is Being Rescinded, CBS News (Sep. 5, 2017, at 10:15 AM), https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/sessions-program-known-as-daca-is-being-rescinded [https://perma.cc/25SC-XYDH]; see also NBC News, Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces the End to DACA Program (Full) | NBC News (YouTube, Sep. 5, 2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpQg5TFmU1E (on file with the University of Colorado Law Review). ↑
- See Press Release, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2017/09/05/rescission-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca [https://perma.cc/2EMF-527V] (last updated Apr. 10, 2025); Michael D. Shear & Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Trump Moves to End DACA and Calls on Congress to Act, N.Y. Times (Sep. 5, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html [https://perma.cc/NG7H-HB6H]. ↑
- E.g., Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 591 U.S. 1 (2020). ↑
- Muzaffar Chishti & Jessica Bolter, Trump Administration Rescinds DACA, Fueling Renewed Push in Congress and the Courts to Protect DREAMers, Migration Pol’y Inst. (Sep. 15, 2017), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trump-administration-rescinds-daca-fueling-renewed-push-congress-and-courts-protect-dreamers [https://perma.cc/H3H4-2SQD]. ↑
- See supra note 52; Legislation to Protect DACA Recipients/Immigrant Youth, Nat’l Immigr. L. Ctr., https://media.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Dream-2017-legislation-compared.pdf [https://perma.cc/S8S2-99TW] (last updated Oct. 2017). ↑
- See Am. Immigr. Council, supra note 30, at 2. ↑
- Ben Harrington & Hillel R. Smith, Cong. Rsch. Serv., LSB10057, District Court Enjoins DACA Phase-Out: Explanation and Takeaways 1–2 (2018) (detailing the injunctions issued by the District Court of the District of Columbia, Northern District of California, and Eastern District of New York). ↑
- Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 591 U.S. at 35–36. ↑
- Katie Glueck, Joe Biden Is Elected the 46th President of the United States., N.Y. Times (Nov. 7, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/joe-biden-is-elected-the-46th-president-of-the-united-states.html [https://perma.cc/TYT9-NT3Z]. ↑
- Alejandra Aramayo, Cong. Rsch. Serv., LSB11369, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): Litigation Status Update 4 (2025); see Miriam Jordan & Eileen Sullivan, Biden Administration Moves to Protect Undocumented Young Adults, N.Y. Times (Sep. 27, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/us/politics/daca-biden.html [https://perma.cc/S8MX-K78E]. ↑
- See Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., https://www.uscis.gov/DACA [https://perma.cc/EY8L-2A9W] (last updated Jan. 24, 2025). On other fronts, the Biden Administration had modest success implementing immigration protections for DACA recipients, such as streamlining employment‑based visas and expanding healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Khalid Hussain & Dilip Patel, Update on New Immigration Initiatives by President Biden, Buchanan (July 8, 2024), https://www.bipc.com/update-on-new-immigration-initiatives-by-president-biden [https://perma.cc/RF2E-6HXZ] (discussing employment‑based visas); Press Release, Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid Servs., Biden‑Harris Administration Builds on the Success of the Affordable Care Act by Streamlining Enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP Coverage (Mar. 27, 2024), https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-builds-success-affordable-care-act-streamlining-enrollment-medicaid-and [https://perma.cc/UYP3-QLYG] (highlighting the expansion of healthcare coverage). Still, President Biden’s vow to sign legislation that provided a path to citizenship for DREAMers and DACAmented immigrants never materialized during his term. See Aramayo, supra note 61. ↑
- Texas v. United States, 549 F. Supp. 3d 572 (S.D. Tex. 2021), aff’d in part, vacated in part, 50 F.4th 498 (5th Cir. 2022), remanded to, supplemented by 691 F. Supp. 3d 763 (S.D. Tex. 2023), supplemented by No. 18‑CV‑00068, 2023 WL 5950808 (S.D. Tex. Sep. 13, 2023), aff’d in part, modified in part, 126 F.4th 392 (5th Cir. 2025) ↑
- Texas v. United States, 549 F. Supp. at 597, 603. ↑
- Texas v. United States, 549 F. Supp. at 603, 624; see also Aaron Reichlin‑Melnick, Federal Judge Strikes Down DACA: What You Need to Know, Am. Immigr. Council (July 19, 2021), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/judge-hanen-strikes-down-daca-what-you-need-to-know [https://perma.cc/7YVM-W54T]; Explainer: U.S. District Court Judge Hanen Finds New DACA Rule Unlawful, Nat’l Immigr. F. (Sep. 14, 2023), https://forumtogether.org/article/explainer-u-s-district-court-judge-hanen-finds-new-daca-rule-unlawful [https://perma.cc/6APE-C62J]. ↑
- Litigation Tracker: Texas v. USA (TX DACA) – Court of Appeals II, Just. Action Ctr., https://litigationtracker.justiceactioncenter.org/cases/texas-v-usa-tx-daca-court-appeals-ii [https://perma.cc/P668-AMGZ]; Texas v. United States: A Timeline of the Fight to Protect DACA, MALDEF, https://www.maldef.org/2021/10/texas-v-united-states-a-timeline-of-the-fight-to-protect-daca [https://perma.cc/9PXH-5L3P] (last updated July 22, 2025). ↑
- See Texas v. United States: A Timeline of the Fight to Protect DACA, supra note 66. Also in January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order known as “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” requiring registration and fingerprinting of immigrants fourteen years of age or older “who were not registered or fingerprinted when applying for a U.S. visa” or who remain in the country for longer than thirty days. Alien Registration Requirement, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., https://www.uscis.gov/alienregistration [https://perma.cc/M69Q-8HMX] (May 6, 2025). DACA recipients have been told they must register despite already undergoing fingerprinting for DACA renewals to be approved, leading many to fear the information will be used by ICE to find immigrants and target them for detention and/or deportation. See id. ↑
- See Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), supra note 62. ↑
- See Ximena Bustillo, DHS Is Urging DACA Recipients to Self‑Deport, NPR (July 29, 2025, at 5:00 AM), https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5482923/dhs-daca-recipients-self-depor [https://perma.cc/VL6J-M9DR]. ↑
- E.g., Robert E. Park & W.I. Thomas, Participation and Social Assimilation, in Source Book for Social Psychology 47, 53 (Kimball Young ed., 1927). ↑
- See generally Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (1964) (outlining frameworks for assessing immigrants’ social, economic, and political integration). ↑
- See Min Zhou, Segmented Assimilation: Issues, Controversies, and Recent Research on the New Second Generation, 31 Int’l Migration Rev. 975, 976, 998 (1997). ↑
- See Susan K. Brown & Frank D. Bean, Assimilation Models, Old and New: Explaining a Long‑Term Process, Migration Pol’y Inst. (Oct. 1, 2006), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/assimilation-models-old-and-new-explaining-long-term-process [https://perma.cc/JZC7-BJ9X]. ↑
- See Gordon, supra note 71, at 84–114. ↑
- Id. at 115–31. ↑
- See Alejandro Portes & Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation 44–49 (2001). ↑
- Zhou, supra note 72, at 975. ↑
- See id. at 976–77. ↑
- See, e.g., supra note 66 (describing the ongoing court case against the DACA program, an example of one of these back‑and‑forth processes brought about by industrial restructuring). ↑
- Zhou, supra note 72, at 975–87. ↑
- See generally Alejandro Portes & Min Zhou, The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants, 530 Ann. Am. Acad. Pol. Soc. Sci. 74 (1993) (comparing the historical trajectory of European immigrants to the United States, who were initially racialized before being considered white ethnics, and contemporary immigrants from developing countries, whose incorporation patterns are shaped by racialized contexts of reception); Alejandro Portes & Dag MacLeod, Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants: The Roles of Class, Ethnicity, and School Context, 69 Socio. Educ. 255 (1996); Jeffrey G. Reitz, Host Societies and the Reception of Immigrants: Research Themes, Emerging Theories and Methodological Issues, 36 Int’l Migration Rev. 1005 (2002); Min Zhou, Coming of Age: The Current Situation of Asian American Children, 25 Amerasia J. 1 (1999); Gary Painter et al., Immigrants and the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: Employment Outcomes Among Immigrant Youth in Los Angeles, 44 Urb. Stud. 2627 (2007). ↑
- See Alan Hirsch, Overcoming the North‑South Divide in Global Migration Governance, Carnegie Endowment for Int’l Peace (Nov. 20, 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/international-migration-policy-global-north-south [https://perma.cc/TT7P-TTLB]. Scholars sometimes refer to countries in the Global South as peripheral or semi‑peripheral and countries in the Global North as core countries. See Erica Hogan & Stewart Patrick, A Closer Look at the Global South, Carnegie Endowment for Int’l Peace (May 20, 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/05/global-south-colonialism-imperialism [https://perma.cc/6YMJ-XQA5]; Nikita Sud & Diego Sánchez‑Ancochea, Southern Discomfort: Is There Value in the Concept of the Global South?, Oxford Dep’t of Int’l Dev. (Feb. 23, 2023), https://www.qeh.ox.ac.uk/blog/southern-discomfort-there-value-concept-global-south [https://perma.cc/6DJC-F8EY]. These terms are meant to denote where countries are situated in the world system characterized by power relations as well as differences in their economic structures and political systems, which dictate where they are situated. Hogan & Patrick, supra; Sud & Sánchez‑Ancochea, supra. It also suggests that peripheral and semi‑peripheral countries are reliant on core countries. Hogan & Patrick, supra; Sud & Sánchez‑Ancochea, supra. ↑
- See, e.g., Hiroshi Motomura, Chapter 6: The Lost Story of Americans in Waiting, in Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States 115, 126–30 (2006) (tracing early immigration laws, such as the National Origins Act of 1924, which sought to limit the number of “inferior” immigrants from south and eastern Europe in favor of migration from northern and western Europe or the so‑called Nordic countries). Motomura notes that the southern, central, and eastern European immigrants—who were initially racialized as undesirable and unassimilable—were gradually incorporated into the dominant white mainstream and allowed to gain citizenship, showing how racial boundaries were used to exclude some groups on the basis of national origin and how these boundaries shift over time. Id. at 124–25, 130–32. ↑
- Tanya Maria Golash‑Boza, Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism 26–27, 143–47, 262–64 (2015). ↑
- See, e.g., Richard Alba & Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration 3–7 (2003) (arguing for a revised assimilation framework that accounts for interaction between immigrants and host societies); Portes & Zhou, supra note 81, at 74–76 (1993) (outlining segmented assimilation theory, which emphasizes the diversity of immigrants’ socioeconomic backgrounds and contexts of reception); Mary C. Waters & Tomás R. Jiménez, Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges, 31 Ann. Rev. Soc. 105, 108–14 (2005) (calling for new approaches to immigrant incorporation that consider bidirectional processes and demographic differentiation). Like Alba and Nee, Waters and Jiménez also move beyond a traditional straight‑line assimilation model and, instead, stress the need for a more nuanced understanding of how race, ethnicity, and context matter for immigrant incorporation. See Alba & Nee, supra; Waters & Jiménez, supra. ↑
- See sources cited supra note 85 (outlining this scholarly opinion). ↑
- Alba & Nee, supra note 85, at 12–13, 93–133. ↑
- See generally Min Zhou, Reflecting on the Theory of Segmented Assimilation: An Introduction, 48 Ethnic & Racial Stud. 1602 (2025) (discussing how different modes of assimilation available to immigrants are shaped by structural conditions and are connected to their race, social class, and national origin, which helps explain how earlier conditions and experiences influence later integration trajectories). ↑
- Alejandro Portes & Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami 22, 190–92 (1993). ↑
- See Mary C. Waters, Immigrant Families at Risk: Factors That Undermine Chances for Success, in Immigration and the Family: Research and Policy on U.S. Immigrants 79, 79 (Alan Booth et al. eds., 1997); see also Sandy Baum & Stella M. Flores, Higher Education and Children in Immigrant Families, 21 Future Child. 171, 172, 177 (2011). ↑
- Gonzales & Chavez, supra note 10, at 255. ↑
- Liminal legality refers to the “gray area between the[] legal categories” of documented and undocumented that affects different aspects of immigrants’ lives. Menjívar, supra note 12, at 999–1000. ↑
- Leisy J. Abrego & Roberto G. Gonzales, Blocked Paths, Uncertain Futures: The Postsecondary Education and Labor Market Prospects of Undocumented Latino Youth, 15 J. Educ. Students Placed Risk 144, 144–46 (2010); see also Els de Graauw & Shannon Gleeson, DACA’s Stratified Tracks for Economic Mobility and Lessons for Addressing Immigrants’ Long‑Term Inequality, 75 U.C. L.J. 1601, 1604– 09 (2024). ↑
- Abrego & Gonzales, supra note 93, at 145–46. ↑
- See sources cited supra note 11. ↑
- See generally Press Release, Nat’l Immigr. L. Ctr., 2021 Survey of DACA Recipients Underscores the Importance of a Pathway to Citizenship (Feb. 3, 2022), https://www.nilc.org/press/release-2021-survey-of-daca-recipients-underscores-the-importance-of-a-pathway-to-citizenship [https://perma.cc/52UL-AGWS] (outlining the importance of providing a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, which would allow them to avoid barriers commonly faced by non‑DACA immigrants). ↑
- Roberto G. Gonzales & Edelina M. Burciaga, Segmented Pathways of Illegality: Reconciling the Coexistence of Master and Auxiliary Statuses in the Experiences of 1.5‑Generation Undocumented Young Adults, 18 Ethnicities 178, 180–84 (2018). ↑
- Id. at 188. ↑
- Zulema Valdez & Tanya Golash‑Boza, Master Status or Intersectional Identity?: Undocumented Students’ Sense of Belonging on a College Campus, 27 Identities 481, 484–86 (2020). ↑
- See Laura E. Enriquez, A ‘Master Status’ or the ‘Final Straw’? Assessing the Role of Immigration Status in Latino Undocumented Youths’ Pathways Out of School, 43 J. Ethnic & Migration Stud. 1526, 1528–30 (2017). ↑
- Hiroshi Motomura, Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy 3–5 (2025). ↑
- Id. at 19–20. ↑
- Id. at 18–20. ↑
- Id. at 20–21. ↑
- Id. at 70–79. ↑
- See Stuart A. Thompson, How False Claims About Immigrants and Dead Pets Became a Trump Talking Point, N.Y. Times (Sep. 10, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/technology/trump-dead-cats-migrants-ohio.html [https://perma.cc/P9DP-QUS2]. ↑
- Ming Hsu Chen, Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era 5 (2020). ↑
- Menjívar, supra note 12, at 1000; see also Leisy J. Abrego, Latino Immigrants’ Diverse Experiences of “Illegality,” in Constructing Immigrant “Illegality”: Critiques, Experiences, and Responses 139, 148 (Cecilia Menjívar & Daniel Kanstroom eds., 2014). ↑
- Gonzales et al., supra note 14, at 227. ↑
- Marie L. Mallet & Lisa García Bedolla, Transitory Legality: The Health Implication of Ending DACA, Cal. J. Pol. & Pol’y, 2019, at 1, 1. ↑
- Susan Bibler Coutin, Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency 27 (2000). ↑
- Burciaga & Malone, supra note 19, at 1092. ↑
- Jennifer M. Chacón, Producing Liminal Legality, 92 Denv. U. L. Rev. 709, 717 (2015). ↑
- Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): Frequently Asked Questions, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs.: Humanitarian, https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-of-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca/frequently-asked-questions [https://perma.cc/JXF5-LDUZ] (last updated Oct. 30, 2025). ↑
- In addition to meeting eligibility criteria, DACA recipients must renew their applications every two years. Renew Your DACA As Early As Possible, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec.: News Archive, https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/05/13/renew-your-daca-early-possible [https://perma.cc/NVW8-RMAN] (last updated Jan. 20, 2025). Originally, the cost of renewals was $495 or more if the services of an attorney were used to file them. USCIS Announces DACA Fee Increase, United We Dream, https://unitedwedream.org/resources/uscis-announces-daca-fee-increase [https://perma.cc/4DLR-ETXC] (last updated Feb. 23, 2024). In April 2024, the fee was changed to $520 for renewals filed in paper form or $470 if filed online. Renew Your DACA As Early As Possible, supra. In addition to the expense, recipients noted the stress of constantly being reminded that they could lose their DACA protections, which also served to amplify their lack of belonging. ↑
- I also draw inspiration from Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s notion of constricted electorate as defined in their books, Why Americans Don’t Vote and Why Americans Still Don’t Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way. In their conception, the constricted electorate refers to the segment of the American electorate that was not the target of electoral reforms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See generally Frances Fox Piven & Richard A. Cloward, Why Americans Don’t Vote (1988); Frances Fox Piven & Richard A. Cloward, Why Americans Still Don’t Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way (2000). ↑
- This is not to say DACA recipients are unaware of the constant threat of deportation, as many live in households with mixed‑status family members. Additionally, under the current Trump Administration, the threat of deportation is even more palpable in immigrant communities, including among DACA recipients. Rather, I argue that, by gaining entrée to social spaces such as colleges and universities or professional occupations, their undocumented status is not as visible or pervasive as it might be for other groups of immigrants. For example, as Tanya Golash‑Boza finds, male immigrants are at greater risk of deportation because they are more likely to work in sectors that are highly visible, such as construction, whereas female immigrants tend to find employment in the private sphere (e.g., employers’ homes) as nannies and housecleaners, which are less visible, thereby reducing the threat of deportation. See Golash‑Boza, supra note 84, at 15; see also Pierrette Hondagneu‑Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence 15 (2007). See generally Tanya Golash‑Boza & Pierrette Hondagneu‑Sotelo, Latino Immigrant Men and the Deportation Crisis: A Gendered Racial Removal Program, 11 Latino Stud. 271, 281–84 (2013) (presenting data that demonstrate how “immigrant detainees and deportees are overwhelmingly male”). ↑
- University of Denver IRB #897578‑7 (originally approved on Sep. 11, 2012; renewed, and effective until May 6, 2027) (on file with author). ↑
- Snowball sampling often entails asking gatekeepers for help identifying potential study participants and recruiting them directly. However, given that I was studying a vulnerable population, it was safer for participants to refer family members, friends, or coworkers to me rather than recruiting them myself. ↑
- Twenty‑four participants arrived between the ages of zero and five years, twenty‑four arrived between the ages of six and ten, and eight arrived when they were older than ten. Three participants did not provide their age at arrival. ↑
- I added up the ages of all participants in the study (1,381) and divided by the total number of participants (n=59), resulting in a mean of 23.4 years. ↑
- See Richard Fry, Young Adults in the U.S. Are Reaching Key Life Milestones Later than in the Past, Pew Rsch. Ctr.: Short Reads (May 23, 2023), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/23/young-adults-in-the-u-s-are-reaching-key-life-milestones-later-than-in-the-past [https://perma.cc/YS4X-Y342]. ↑
- Two of the sixteen college graduates had law or other advanced degrees. Additionally, two participants were in high school, three had a high school diploma or some college, and two did not provide their highest level of education. ↑
- Seventy‑four percent of Latinos in Colorado are of Mexican origin. Latinos as a whole constitute 22 percent of the state’s total population. Taemin Ahn et al., UCLA Latino Pol’y & Pol. Inst., 15 Facts About Latino Well‑Being in Colorado 1 (2023), https://latino.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CO-15-facts.pdf [https://perma.cc/E8YJ-B339]. ↑
- A small number of participants were born in other Latin American countries, and one was born in an Asian country. In terms of labels, most participants chose ones that most aligned with their ethnic identity such as Chicano, Mexicana, Hispanic, or Latina/o. ↑
- The Front Range is the region east of the Rocky Mountains, which is where the largest cities, including Denver, are located. Daniel Tyler, Front Range, Colo. Encyc., https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range [https://perma.cc/5HJV-VU6X]. It is also where the major universities and sectors requiring college degrees are concentrated. See Selecting an Institution, Colo. Dep’t of Higher Educ., https://cdhe.colorado.gov/selecting-an-institution [https://perma.cc/96VZ-ZSTN]. ↑
- The Western Slope, or the region west of the Rocky Mountains, is home to ski resorts and agricultural communities, which rely heavily on immigrant workers. See Stina Sieg, From the Continental Divide to Utah, or Somewhere Else? Where Is the Western Slope in Colorado?, CPR News (Nov. 27, 2023, at 4:00 AM), https://www.cpr.org/2023/11/27/where-is-the-western-slope-colorado [https://perma.cc/96G4-935N]; Rachael Wright, Western Slope Farmers Fear Impact of Mass Deportations and Labor Market Shortages, Denv. Gazette (Jan. 26, 2025), https://www.denvergazette.com/2025/01/26/western-slope-farmers-fear-impact-of-mass-deportations-and-labor-market-changes [https://perma.cc/LAW5-7R7E]; David Frey, Resort Counties Push for Legal Workers, High Country News (Nov. 19, 2001), https://www.hcn.org/issues/issue-215/resort-counties-push-for-legal-workers [https://perma.cc/484E-GF8E]. ↑
- See Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): Frequently Asked Questions, supra note 114. Recipients can lose DACA status if they fail to renew on time, commit a felony or certain misdemeanor (or three or more misdemeanors generally), or are considered a national security or public safety threat. See id. ↑
- Data collection proceeded in two waves, in part because the first wave was completed shortly after DACA was implemented, allowing me to capture participants’ responses to the program and their experiences before and immediately after their applications were approved. However, it was not yet clear how DACA was affecting their education‑ or work‑related outcomes, as it was too soon to tell. The second wave of interviews began at the height of the 2016 presidential election. Given Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric and, specifically, his vow to eliminate DACA if elected president, it seemed pertinent to understand the effect on recipients as well as the consequences of the program’s 2017 recission. ↑
- Using a semi‑structured format, I developed an interview protocol consisting of thirty‑one open‑ended questions in Wave I and thirty‑six questions in Wave II where, in addition to basic demographic questions, participants were asked to elaborate on the meaning and significance of their experiences in response to interview questions as well as probes to obtain more detail or explanation. This format allows researchers to ask the same set of core questions to everyone while also giving participants the flexibility to bring up themes that the researchers may not have asked about or anticipated but are nonetheless relevant to the study. I conducted all interviews usually in public and semi‑private places, such as cafes, restaurants, libraries, student unions, and even some in my campus office. Interviews ranged from thirty to ninety minutes. Most participants were interviewed once, although a handful were interviewed in the first wave and then again in a follow-up at a later point in time. ↑
- Interview transcripts are on file with the author. They are not available to the public due to IRB guidelines restricting the dissemination of data involving human subjects. University of Denver IRB #897578-7 (originally approved on Sep. 11, 2012; renewed, and effective until May 6, 2027) (on file with author). ↑
- See Obama, supra note 3. ↑
- See generally Glenn P. Malone et al., The General Belongingness Scale (GBS): Assessing Achieved Belongingness, 52 Personality & Individual Differences 311 (2012) (describing how individuals’ sense of belonging can be measured across social contexts and noting the distinction between feelings of inclusion versus exclusion). ↑
- See infra Section V.A. ↑
- See infra Section V.B. ↑
- See infra Section V.C. ↑
- Plyler v. Doe is the Supreme Court case that determined it is unconstitutional to withhold state funds from schools that educate or deny enrollment to children who were not “legally admitted” into the United States. Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 223–24, 230 (1982). In essence, it guarantees immigrant children are eligible to receive public school education in grades K‑12. See Am. Immigr. Council, Public Education for Immigrant Students: Understanding Plyler v. Doe 1 (2016), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/public_education_for_immigrant_students_understanding_plyer_v_doe.pdf [https://perma.cc/NC48-NSK7]. ↑
- See generally Marinka Swift, “First They Americanize You and Then They Throw You Out”: A LangCrit Analysis of Language and Citizen Identity, 4 J. Belonging Identity Language & Diversity 57 (2020) (outlining the immigration stories of specific individuals and how those stories are reflected in their use of and preference between Spanish and English). ↑
- Despite being fluent, participants were concerned that their Spanish was no longer proper insofar as they spoke it with an American accent or that their Spanish would be perceived by native‑born Spanish speakers as inauthentic. ↑
- Interview with Emilio, DACA Recipient (Aug. 13, 2018) (on file with author). ↑
- Of the fifty‑nine participants in the study, forty‑seven arrived before the age of ten. ↑
- Interview with Jorge, DACA Recipient (Aug. 1, 2016) (on file with author). ↑
- Interview with Jazmine, DACA Recipient (June 6, 2018) (on file with author). ↑
- In 2013, legislators approved a bill granting undocumented students the ability to pay in‑state tuition rates at Colorado’s public universities, known as Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET). Due to ASSET, undocumented students are eligible for in‑state tuition rather than having to pay international tuition rates, which are considerably higher. They are also eligible for the Colorado Opportunity Fund (COF), which provides new and continuing students in Colorado with a small stipend to pay in‑state tuition. See Colo. Dep’t of Higher Educ., Revised ASSET Legislation, https://cdhe.colorado.gov/sites/highered/files/Revised%20ASSET%20Legislation%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf [https://perma.cc/EG65-YURT]; The College Opportunity Fund, Colo. Dep’t of Higher Educ., https://cdhe.colorado.gov/the-college-opportunity-fund [https://perma.cc/52LH-ZGLY]; Colo. Rev. Stat. § 23-7-110(1)–(2) (2025). ↑
- Roberto Gonalzes argues this is the beginning of the stage in young, undocumented immigrants’ lives when they realize the protections afforded to them in adolescence begin to disappear and, instead, they must learn to be “illegal.” See Gonzales et al., supra note 14, at 150–64. ↑
- Interview with Nancy, DACA Recipient (Nov. 6, 2016) (on file with author). ↑
- Immigrants in Colorado became eligible to receive driver’s licenses due to the passage of the Colorado Road and Community Safety Act in 2013. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 42‑2‑505(1) (2025). Restricted licenses are marked with a black bar across the top indicating they are standard licenses but not compliant with a REAL ID. To distinguish them from licenses that are REAL ID compliant, they read, “Not valid for federal identification, voting, or public benefit purposes.” Id. § 42‑2‑505(2); see also Noncitizen Driver Licenses (SB 13‑251), Colo. Gen. Assembly, https://leg.colorado.gov/content/noncitizen-driver-licenses-sb-13%E2%80%91251 [https://perma.cc/E75U-89WF]. ↑
- Nancy’s reference to “nationless children in Africa” reflects her recollections in high school learning about groups whose identities did not map onto recognized nation‑states, such as cross‑border ethnic groups or historically stateless populations. Her comparison to Basque separatists similarly reflects her understanding of groups whose nationhood is not fully recognized. Both examples illustrate her own sense of nationlessness because of what she perceives as a lack of formal membership or acceptance in the United States. ↑
- While some participants, like Nancy, identified as DREAMers, most participants in the study did not. This is likely because they were children when the DREAM Act was being considered or because other identities, such as DACAmented or UndocuQueer or ethnic labels, were more salient. ↑
- Interview with Jacquie, DACA Recipient (July 23, 2018) (on file with author). ↑
- See generally Roberto G. Gonzales et al., No Place to Belong: Contextualizing Concepts of Mental Health Among Undocumented Immigrant Youth in the United States, 57 Am. Behav. Sci. 1174 (2013); Cecilia Ayón et al., Mental Health Help‑Seeking Among Latina/o/x Undocumented College Students, 30 Cultur. Divers. Ethnic Minor. Psych. 434 (2024). ↑
- See generally Alessandra Bazo Vienrich & Rosalie A. Torres Stone, The Educational Trajectories of Latinx Undocumented Students: Illegality and Threats to Emotional Well‑Being, Socius, Dec. 2022, at 1. ↑
- Interview with Nayeli, DACA Recipient (July 6, 2016) (on file with author). ↑
- Gonzales et al., supra note 14, at 60–61. ↑
- An F‑1 is a nonimmigrant visa for international students who wish to study in the United States and are enrolled in a program that culminates in a degree, diploma, or certificate at a school approved by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). Students and Employment, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs.: Working in the U.S., https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/students-and-employment [https://perma.cc/9R3H-FR7E] (last updated Nov. 11, 2025). It also requires the issuance of a Form I‑20 from that school and the payment of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) fee. Student and Exchange Visitor Program: Students, U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enf’t, https://www.ice.gov/sevis/students [https://perma.cc/CRX7-NFNF] (last updated July 8, 2025). The student must also demonstrate financial ability to cover their expenses during their proposed course of study and prove intent to return to their home country after completing their education. Students and Employment, supra. In Nayeli’s case, because her family migrated when she was two years old and she had lived in the United States almost her entire life, she had no relatives, social ties, or reason to return to Mexico. Interview with Nayeli, supra note 153. ↑
- Interviews with Ricardo, DACA Recipient (Aug. 29, 2013 & Nov. 29, 2017) (on file with author). ↑
- Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America, Am. Immigr. Council (July 23, 2025), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation-trump-democracy [https://perma.cc/3NGY-B2ZX]. ↑
- Interview with Leslie, DACA Recipient (Nov. 4, 2016) (on file with author). ↑
- Interview with Angel, DACA Recipient (May 22, 2018) (on file with author). ↑
- See Donald Trump Presidential Campaign, 2016/Immigration, Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016/Immigration [https://perma.cc/LK56-CGM2]. ↑
- Political pundits and policymakers have offered numerous explanations for why the Obama Administration failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, including Republicans’ attempts to block his first‑term agenda to make him a one‑term president, as then‑Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is reported to have said in October 2010. See Andy Barr, The GOP’s No‑Compromise Pledge, Politico (Oct. 28, 2010, at 8:09 AM), https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311 [https://perma.cc/CW7V-BCHU]. Additionally, in the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans regained control of the House while the Democratic majority in the Senate shrunk. Alexander Burns, GOP Wins House; Dems Keep Senate, Politico, https://www.politico.com/story/2010/11/gop-wins-house-dems-keep-senate-044561 [https://perma.cc/N5UV-J6FY] (last updated Nov. 3, 2010, at 4:17 PM). Facing more Republican opposition made it difficult for Obama to get legislation through. This, combined with Obama spending much of his political capital getting the Affordable Care Act passed, meant they were unable to follow through on immigration reform. Glenn Thrush & Carrie Budoff Brown, Obama’s Health Care Conversion, Politico, https://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/obama-health-care-conversion-obamacare-097185 [https://perma.cc/56HV-DN27] (last updated Sep. 9, 2013, at 9:20 PM). Instead, Obama took a hard‑line approach to immigration enforcement, including a record number of deportations in 2013, which surpassed the combined number of deportations under his predecessors, Presidents Bush and Clinton. See Muzzaffar Chishti & Faye Hipsman, U.S. Immigration Reform Didn’t Happen in 2013; Will 2014 Be the Year?, Migration Pol’y Inst. (Jan. 9, 2014), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/us-immigration-reform-didnt-happen-2013-will-2014-be-year [https://perma.cc/R7TJ-N8KD]. Democrats vowed to pass immigration legislation when Obama’s successor was elected, which they assumed would be Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. See President Obama’s Legacy on Immigration, Am. Immigr. Council (Jan. 20, 2017), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/president-obamas-legacy-immigration [https://perma.cc/AAK4-3N58] (alluding to how other issues took precedence over immigration reform during Obama’s presidency and how both political parties aimed to pass immigration legislation if they won the 2016 presidential election). ↑
- Maggie Haberman, Ex-Homeland Security Officials Urge Faster Action on DACA, N.Y. Times (Jan. 3, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-homeland-security-daca.html [https://perma.cc/P3GD-QMXN]. ↑
- Interview with Marisol & Bee, DACA Recipients (Aug. 3, 2018) (on file with author). ↑
- Shear & Cooper, supra note 51. ↑
- Lorraine T. Benuto et al., Undocumented, to DACAmented, to DACAlimited: Narratives of Latino Students with DACA Status, 40 Hisp. J. Behav. Sci. 259, 265, 269–70 (2018). ↑
- See Edelina M. Burciaga & Lisa M. Martinez, How Do Political Contexts Shape Undocumented Youth Movements? Evidence from Three Immigrant Destinations, 22 Mobilization 451, 453 (2017). ↑
- See Interview with Emilio, supra note 140; see also Laura Finley & Luigi Esposito, The Immigrant as Bogeyman: Examining Donald Trump and the Right’s Anti‑Immigrant, Anti‑PC Rhetoric, 44 Human. & Soc’y 178, 178 (2020). ↑
- Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a designation afforded to certain foreign countries where conditions in those countries temporarily prevent their nationals from returning safely or where they are “unable to handle return of its national adequately” due to civil war, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary circumstances. See Temporary Protected Status, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs.: Humanitarian, https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status [https://perma.cc/Z5G7-WU67] (last updated Jan. 27, 2026). Foreign nationals from designated TPS countries are not removable from the United States and are authorized to obtain employment. Id. Like DACA protections, TPS has been scaled back, especially for Venezuelans. Id.; see Adam Liptak, Trump Asks the Supreme Court, Again, to Lift Protections for Venezuelans, N.Y. Times (Sep. 19, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/us/trump-supreme-court-protections-venezuelans.html [https://perma.cc/H8K2-KTRE]. ↑
- Motomura, supra note 101, at 75. ↑
- See Key Facts on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), supra note 8. ↑
- Bono, supra note 7, at 222. ↑
- Motomura, supra note 83, at 9–11, 94–99, 202. ↑
- See Jeffrey S. Passel & Jens Manuel Krogstad, U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Aug. 21, 2025), https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023 [https://perma.cc/25PJ-CGTR]. ↑
- Motomura, supra note 101, at 93–95. ↑
- See generally Michael A. Olivas, Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA (2020) (arguing that debates about the DREAM Act and DACA expose how formal immigration status categories fail to capture the lived realities of undocumented youth, requiring legal and policy approaches that move beyond status). ↑
- See Motomura, supra note 101, at 20–22. ↑
- Key Facts on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), supra note 8. ↑
- Gonzales et al., supra note 14, at 227. ↑
- Dingeman‑Cerda et al., supra note 4, at 70–71; see also Nicholas P. De Genova, Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life, 31 Ann. Rev. Anthropology 419, 438 (2002). See generally Douglas S. Massey, Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System 242–60 (2007) (showing how stratification in the United States is produced by the categorizing of individuals into hierarchies based on race, class, and gender). The framework discussed in Massey’s book demonstrates how the immigration system and reforms like DACA reproduce inequality by sorting immigrants into racialized and classed categories used to determine their worth and deservingness. Id. ↑
- See Kevin R. Johnson, Lessons About the Future of Immigration Law from the Rise and Fall of DACA, 52 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 343, 376 (2018). See generally Immigrant Legal Res. Ctr., Preparing for the Future: Understanding the Rights and Options of DACA Recipients 21–26 (2019), www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/daca-toolkit-jan2020.pdf [https://perma.cc/J63D-3X5K]. ↑