‘Felons are also our family’: citizenship and solidarity in the undocumented youth movement in the United States

The undocumented youth movement began in the United States inthe mid-2000s. Drawing on qualitative research with undocumentedyoung organisers in California, this article explores how relationshipsbetween undocumented youth, the wider undocumentedpopulation,andlegal citizens have been understood in narrativesof citizenship in the movement over time. It is argued that,paradoxically, the movement’s retreat from prioritising a pathwayto legal citizenship for the most‘eligible’, made visible historicand contemporary ties to the United States and its peoples thatare obscured in hegemonic narratives of contemporarycitizenship. In becoming more inclusive of the widerundocumented population, positions of solidarity withmarginalised US citizens have also emerged. In the context ofattacks on some racialised and other marginalised social groupsduring Trump’s presidency, such solidarity is even more vital