Undocumented and Unafraid: The Emergence of an Undocumented Movement and Its Impact on Immigration Policy, the DREAM Act, DACA, DAPA, and Family Unification

Undocumented and Unafraid: The Emergence of an Undocumented Movement and Its Impact on Immigration Policy, the DREAM Act, DACA, DAPA, and Family Unification This articles traces the efforts of undocumented students throughout the U.S. to come forward and reveal their status, claim rights, and participate in political and community engagement efforts typical of U.S. citizens by becoming active in student and community organizations, shaping political discourse on immigrant rights, and expanding our conception of what it means to be ‘American.’ Their social activism reflects a strong desire to be full-members of this society. Undocumented youth are deeply concerned about family separation, as many have friends and family who have been deported or face deportation. Despite risk of their own deportation, undocumented students exhibited strength, resilience, and determination by revealing their status and advocating for changes in immigration policy. Deportations break up families, leaving some in the United States, while others are forced to return to their homeland. The article examines the emergence of a network of activist undocumented students who advocated for adoption of the DREAM Act. It explores the impact that movement had on President Obama’s decision to take executive action (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA) and DAPA (which provided protection for parents of undocumented). The advocacy for the DREAM Act, immigration reform, and executive action expanded the social space for undocumented to further re-define their role in civil society as active agents of social change. The current anti-Mexican immigrant rhetoric follows a long tradition of anti-immigrant and nativist opposition to immigration in the U.S. Similarly, the emergence of a movement of undocumented youth parallels, social movements of other marginalized groups who have fought for and eventually won expansion of rights. Undocumented Latinos are shaping political discourse within the broader Latino population and have the potential to increase Latino political participation rates generally, particularly in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. The article builds off of the concept of ‘cultural citizenship,’ first introduced by noted anthropologist Renato Rosaldo and a team co-led by this author (Flores and Benmayor, 1997), which argues that citizenship is contested as new groups arise and claim identity, space, and rights in cultural and social spheres, often leading to claims in political spheres