Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 10:38 pm
Time: 10:38 pm
Results for criminalization of immigrants
1 results foundAuthor: Anderson, Jill Title: Bilingual, Bicultural, Not Yet Binational: Undocumented Immigrant Youth in Mexico and the United States Summary: An entire generation of children, adolescents and young adults has been caught in the crucible of increasing criminalization of immigrants coupled with neoliberal globalization policies in Mexico and the United States. These are first- and second-generation immigrant youth who are bicultural, often bilingual, but rarely recognized as binational citizens in either of their countries. In the United States, Mexican immigrants account for an estimated 28 percent of the immigrant population (the largest origin group) and 56 percent among the undocumented immigrant population (Zong and Batalova 2016). Since 2005, an estimated two million Mexicans have returned to Mexico after having lived in the United States, including over 500,000 U.S.-born children (Gonzalez-Barrera 2015, Jacobo and Espinosa 2015). As of 2005, the population of Mexican-origin immigrant youth in the United States (first- and second-generation) reached an estimated 6.9 million. They have come of age in conditions of extreme vulnerability due to their undocumented status or the undocumented status of their parents. As of 2015, about 10 percent of the undocumented bicultural immigrant youth population has significant although precarious legal protections under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) while a little over 15 percent of Mexican-American immigrant youth now live in conditions of exile from the United States under automatic bans assigned to them or their caretakers post-deportation and return. The majority of undocumented immigrant youth live in the United States within the legal limbo between the two possibilities of "protected status" and "exile," but under the constant threat of the latter. A crisis of terms and a scarcity of accurate, quantitative data about undocumented, mixed-status, and in particular, deported/returning immigrants continue to challenge efforts to articulate and advocate for adequate public policies. We do know that the returning population since 2005 is younger, returns as a part of a family unit, returns under duress, has spent more years in the United States, and is predominately male. The challenges that immigrant youth face in the aftermath of deportation and return are varied. Emotional distress, post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression and alienation are commonly described as key factors during the first months to years of return. These young people have experienced family separation, a sense of alienation, and human rights violations during detention and deportation. Systemic and inter-personal discrimination against deportees and migrants among the non-migrant population in Mexico can make an already challenging situation more difficult. For some, an accent, a lack of language proficiency in Spanish, and/or tattoos make it difficult to "blend in," find jobs, or continue their studies. In addition to emotional and socio-cultural stress, there are also facing systemic educational, employment and political barriers to local integration and stability. The Mexican federal government's response to its returning citizens has exclusively emphasized crisis-management during the initial days of return and has been characterized by an ad hoc response: re-naming old programs as opposed to re-imagining and adapting them to a decidedly new paradigm. This paper gestures towards an alternative. The Mexican government can build on the constructive and successful models of policy design, programming and implementation within the Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE) and the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME) amongst Mexican immigrants in the United States over the last twenty years. By replicating initiatives first taken abroad, the 45 SRE delegation offices across Mexico that are primarily dedicated to passport services might begin to collaborate with returning immigrant families and local institutions to include services that also support integration via legal identity, education, employment, public health, and cultural activities. Just as consulates across the United States have evolved to include and respond to the needs of immigrants and local institutions in the United States, the SRE delegation offices in Mexico can evolve with a focus on return immigrant families in their local and global contexts. Furthermore, the U.S. and Mexican governments must collaborate on a multi-year binational commission of government actors, civil society leaders, academics, and members of transnational mixed-status immigrant families to produce a broad quantitative study of transnational families using differentiated indicators such as age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity/race, language(s), self-proscribed identity, immigration status, educational aspirations, and public health. This study must move beyond, although not away from the emphasis on pathways to citizenship for Mexican immigrants in the United States, to focus on family reunification, education, and legal mobility for transnational families in transnational contexts. Bicultural immigrant youth are an integral part of mixed-status transnational families who increasingly have members on both sides of the militarized U.S.-Mexico border. They need public policies that are crafted in terms of the recognition, unification (temporary or permanent) and integration of their families. Furthermore, their integration into the community of their choice must be predicated upon access to education (including higher education), employment, and international mobility as bi-national citizens. By re-framing the debate over immigration as a broader conversation about the constellation of public policy reforms needed to govern transnational movement and citizenship in the twenty-first century, we can better articulate just what is at stake in a major historical shift that has only begun. Details: Washington, DC: Wilson Center, Mexico Institute, 2016. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 8, 2017 at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/bilingual_bicultural_not_yet_binational_undocumented_immigrant_youth_in_mexico_and_the_united_states.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Mexico URL: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/bilingual_bicultural_not_yet_binational_undocumented_immigrant_youth_in_mexico_and_the_united_states.pdf Shelf Number: 145354 Keywords: Criminalization of ImmigrantsImmigrant YouthImmigrantsImmigrationMigrantsUndocumented Immigrants |