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Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families
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Description
There are approximately eleven million undocumented people living in the United States, and most of them have family members who are U.S. citizens. There is a common perception that marriage to a U.S. citizen puts undocumented immigrants on a quick-and-easy path to U.S. citizenship. But for people who have entered the U.S. unlawfully and live here without papers, the line to legal status is neither short nor easy, even for those with spouses who are U.S. citizens. Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families follows mixed-status couples down the long and bumpy road of immigration processing. It explores how they navigate every step along the way, from the decision to undertake legalization, to the immigration interview in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to the effort to put together a case of "extreme hardship" so that the undocumented family member can return. Author Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz also discusses families' efforts to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of immigration processing--both for those who are successful and those who are not.
ISBN
9780190276010
Publication Date
6-3-2016
Publisher
Oxford University Press
City
New York, USA
Keywords
Immigration, immigrants, Emigration and immigration law, Emigration and immigration--Social aspects
Disciplines
Anthropology | Social and Cultural Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth, "Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families" (2016). Faculty Books. 226.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/facultybooks/226
