Migrant "Illegality" and Deportability in Everyday Life Author(s): Nicholas P. De Genova Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol.

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Annu. Rev. Anthropol.2002. 31:419-47 doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085432 Copyright@ 2002 by AnnualReviews. All rights reserved Firstpublishedonline as a Review in Advance on June 14, 2002

MIGRANT"ILLEGALITY" AND DEPORTABILITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Nicholas P. De Genova
and Columbia 1130 Studies, Department Anthropology Latinalo of University, Amsterdam New NY Avenue, York, 10027;email:npdl8@columbia.edu Key Words undocumented migration/immigration, illegal aliens,law, labor, UnitedStates,Mexican/Latin American space,racialization, 0 Abstract This articlestrivesto meet two challenges.As a review,it providesa criticaldiscussionof the scholarship undocumented witha speconcerning migration, cial emphasison ethnographically informed worksthatforeground significant aspects of theeveryday of undocumented life But migrants. another concernhereis to forkey mulatemorepreciselythetheoretical statusof migrant and in "illegality" deportability orderthatfurther research relatedto undocumented be conceptualized migration may morerigorously. This reviewconsidersthe studyof migrant as "illegality" an episteand it mological,methodological, politicalproblem,in orderto then formulate as a theoretical The to problem. articlearguesthatit is insufficient examinethe "illegality" of undocumented and migration only in termsof its consequences thatit is necessary also to produce informed accounts the sociopolitical of historically processesof "illewhichcan be characterized thelegal production migrant as of themselves, galization" "illegality."

INTRODUCTION
has Illegal immigration emergedas a generalizedfact in virtuallyall of the wealthiest nation-states(Sassen 1998; 1999, p. 143) as well as in many regionalcenters of productionand consumption(Harris1995) duringthe post-World WarII era, regardlessof the political culture or particularmigrationpolicies of any given state. Migrant"illegality"has risen to unprecedented prominenceas a "problem" in policy debatesandas an objectof borderpolicing strategiesfor statesaroundthe world. The literaturewrittenin English on migrant"illegality"is predominantly focused on undocumentedmigrationto the United States (cf. Harris 1995) and especially on undocumentedMexican migration.There are, of course, historical reasons for this uneven developmentin scholarship. In Europe,"illegal immigration... has emergedas a majorissue" only "in the last few years" (Sassen 1999, p. 104). By the 1970s, several WesternEuropean states-as well as Australia, Canada,Venezuela, and Argentina-were already undocumentedmigrantsby recourse to "legalization" attemptingto "regularize" 0084-6570/02/1021-0419$14.00 419

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DEGENOVA of procedures(adjustments status) and official "amnesties":12,000 were "legalin ized" in Belgium in 1974; 15,000 in the Netherlands 1975; 140,000 in Francein in Spain in 1986, and 104,000 more in 1991 (Soysal 1994, p. 132); 1981; 44,000 15,000 in Australiaand 30,000 in Venezuela by the early 1990s (Hagan 1994, p. 174; cf. Meissner et al. 1986). Yet these figures are dwarfedby the 3.2 million undocumented migrants"legalized"in the United States following the 1986 the and Moreover, U.S. BorderPatrol'sapprehension deportation prac"amnesty." 1920s [contrastthis with the case of Japan, where migrant tices began in the "illegality"was made an object of law only in 1990, as Sassen (1998) points out]. The geographicalunevenness of the scholarly literatureon undocumented as migrationreflectsits character a responseto real sociopoliticaltransformations. the Predictably, revision of analyticframeworksand the developmentof new theoreticalperspectiveshave tendedto lag far behind the sheerrestlessnessof life. Thus, this essay strivesto meet two challenges.As a review essay, it providesa critical discussion of the scholarshipon undocumented migration,with a special informedworks thatforegroundsignificantaspects emphasis on ethnographically of the everydaylife of undocumentedmigrants.Otherreviews in this series that have addressedsome of the broaderthemes thatframethe specific concernof this essay include Alonso (1994), Alvarez (1995), Kearney(1986, 1995), and Ortiz (this volume). But anotherkey concern here is to formulatemore precisely the theoreticalstatusof the themes of migrant"illegality"and deportabilityin order that furtherresearchrelated to undocumentedmigrationmay be conceptualized more rigorously.

AS THE STUDYOF MIGRANT"ILLEGALITY" AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL, METHODOLOGICAL, PROBLEM AND POLITICAL

There is a vast social science literatureon so-called "illegal aliens" and "illegal At immigration." the outset, it is worthwhiledwelling for a momenton the termianalyticcategoriesthatoperatepervasively nologies thatsignal more fundamental will in the formulationof the subjectat hand.In this essay, the termundocumented be consistently deployed in place of the category "illegal"as well as other,less "unauobnoxious but not less problematicproxies for it, such as "extra-legal," or "clandestine."Throughoutthe ensuing text, I deploy thorized,""irregular," the quotes in orderto denaturalize reificationof this distinctionwhereverthe term as well as whereverthe terms"legal"or "illegal"modify mi"illegality"appears, of grationor migrants.Thus, the appearance quotes aroundthese termsshouldnot be understoodto indicate the precise terminologythat pertainsin any particular nation-statecontext, or any historically specific instance, or any particularauthor'susage, so muchas a generalanalyticpracticeon my part.Likewise, the term Unless will "migration" be consistentlydeployedhere to supplant"immigration." referringspecifically to immigrationlaw or policy, I also deploy quotes wherever the terms"immigration" "immigrant" or appear,in orderto problematizethe

MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 421 AND implicitly unilinearteleology of these categories(posited always from the standnation-state,in terms of outsiderscoming in, prepoint of the migrant-receiving to stay). This strategyallows me to problematize way thatU.S. nationthe sumably of alism,in particular, interpellates historicallyspecificmigrationsin its production and as "immigration" "immigrant" an essentialized,generic, and singularobject, subordinated thatsame teleology by which migrantsinexorablybecome permato nent settlersand the U.S. nation-stateassumes the form of a "promisedland"-a self-anointedrefuge of libertyand opportunity. of [Foran expandedtreatment this essentialism and the figure of "the immigrant" an object of U.S. as "immigrant" nationalism,see De Genova (1999, pp. 67-104; n.d.); (cf. Chock 1991 and Honig 1998, 2001)]. The conceptualproblemsembeddedin terminologyare symptomaticof deeper little problemsof intellectual-and ultimatelypolitical-orientation. Remarkably, of this vast scholarship methodsor otherqualitative research deploys ethnographic techniquesto elicit the perspectivesand experiences of undocumentedmigrants themselves, or to evoke the kinds of densely descriptiveand texturedinterpretive of tendto relish.If, representations everydaylife thatsocioculturalanthropologists as Kearney(1986, p. 331) has suggested,the academichome of migrationstudies was long a murky"backroom of demography," where it did not receive much attentionfromanthropologists, thensurelythe studyof undocumented migrationhas long been lost in the shufflesomewherein a corridorbetween demography, policy studies, and criminology.Indeed, much of the scholarshiphas been persistently eitherexplicitly promulgating or anotherpurported one "solution" to prescriptive, the putative"problem," simply deploying the entire arsenalof social scientific or of objectivitiesin orderto assess the presumed"successes"or "failures" such legislative strategiesor administrative enforcementtactics. Portes (1978) made and this pointnearly25 yearsago, andthe situationis not drasticallydifferenttoday.As he explainedat thattime, "Thereasonsfor this emphasisare not difficultto determine. Illegal immigrationis one of those issues in which the interestsof scholars andgovernmentagenciesconverge.Hence, much of the recentliterature aims at an audiencecomposed of decision-makers... " (1978, p. 469). The concernof such researcherswith policy-relevance,now as then, entails presuppositionsthrough which researchis effectively formulatedand conductedfrom the standpoint the of state, with all of its ideological conceits more or less conspicuously smuggled in tow. In contrast,from the standpointof "thefree movementof people," as Harris puts it, "theproblemis the state ratherthan those who are mobile" (Harris1995, p. 85; cf. Carens1987). Assumingthatundocumented migrationis indeeda "probthat the state genuinely seeks to remedy this situation on behalf of the lem," majority of its citizenry and that the state is capable of actually effecting the recommendations such studies,"studieswhich examine the problemwithinofof limits [...] yield a constrainedand impoverishedproduct" ficially pre-established (1978, p. 470). "If governmentaldefinitionsof reality do not coincide with those of other actors in the system,"Whitefordelaborates,"thatshould not come as a Whatdoes seem surprising thatsocial scientists..,. sharethe worldview is surprise. of the bureaucrats" (1979, p. 134).

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DE GENOVA

"Illegality"(much like citizenship) is a juridical status that entails a social relationto the state;as such, migrant"illegality"is a preeminentlypolitical idennoncitizens of a particular tity. To conductresearchrelatedto the undocumented fromthe unexaminedstandpoint its citizens, then,involvesthe kind nation-state of of uncriticalethnocentrismthat is, by definition,a perversionof anthropology's putative aims as a distinctive mode of inquiry (De Genova 1999, 2003). There is a still deeper methodologicalproblem,however.It is necessary to distinguish between studyingundocumented people, on the one hand, and studying"illegalon ity" and deportability, the other.The familiarpitfalls by which ethnographic objectificationbecomes a kind of anthropological pornography-showing it just to show it, as it were-become infinitely more complicatedhere by the danger that ethnographic disclosurecan quite literallybecome a kind of surveillance,effectively complicit with if not altogetherin the service of the state. As Foucault observes, in his characteristic style that so elegantly states the obvious, "the existence of a legal prohibitioncreates aroundit a field of illegal practices"(1979, documentation p. 280). In the case of undocumented migrants,the ethnographic and exhibitionof such practicescan have quite practicalconsequencesand entail certainethical quandaries strategicrisks at the levels of both researchpractice and and representation. It is important clarifythatundocumented to migrants,as such, do not comprise an objectively or intrinsicallyself-delimiting domain for anthropologicalstudy. As Malkki argueswith respect to "refugees,"the analyticvalidity and usefulness of the term undocumentedmigrantsis that it supplies "a broadlegal or descriptive rubric"that includes within it a tremendousheterogeneity (Malkki 1995, p. 496; cf. Brennan1984, Couper 1984). Undocumentedmigrationsare, indeed, preeminentlylabormigrations(cf. Burawoy1976; Bustamante1972, 1976, 1978; Castells 1975;Chavez1992a,pp. 139-55; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Kearney1998; Rouse 1995a,b). (Note thatthe U.S. BorderPatrol,from 1925-when it was first created-until 1940, operatedunderthe auspicesof the Department Labor).As of such, undocumented migrationswould be inconceivablewere it not for the value then, theyproducethroughthe diverseservicesthey supplyto citizens. "Illegality," both theoreticallyand practically,is a social relationthat is fundamentally inseparablefrom citizenship.Furthermore, concretely,thereareno hermeticallysealed communitiesof undocumented migrants.In everydaylife, undocumented migrants areinvariably in social relationswith "legal"migrantsas well as citizens, engaged andthey commonlylive in quiteintimateproximityto variouscategoriesof "documented"persons--sometimes as spouses,frequentlyas parentsor extendedfamily members (often sharingthe same households), as well as neighbors,coworkers, and so on. "Ona day-to-daybasis, theirillegalitymay be irrelevant most of their to an issue in certaincontexts.... Muchof the time they are activities,only becoming fromthose aroundthem,but suddenly... legal realityis superimundifferentiated posed on daily life" (Coutin2000, p. 40; cf. Corcoran1993, pp. 144-51). To conductresearchon undocumented migrantsas such--conceptualizedin isolation-is thereforeto perpetrate ratheregregiouskind of epistemic violence on the social a

MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 423 AND reality of everyday life for those migrants.Furthermore, constitutingundocby umentedmigrants(the people) as an epistemological and ethnographic"object" of study,social scientists,howeverunwittingly,become agents in an aspect of the everydayproductionof those migrants'"illegality"--in effect, accomplices to the discursivepower of immigrationlaw. In her ethnography Sanctuary of Movement activists' struggles on behalf of securing refugee status and political asylum for undocumented CentralAmericans,Coutin(1993) emphasizesthe everydaysocial relationsthathelp to sustainwhatshe calls "alienation" processthroughwhich (the individualscome to be definedas "illegalaliens")."Giventhe pervasivenessof this system,"Coutin(1993, p. 89) contends,"anyact thatconstructsindividuals'legal identities has political implications."Notably, in her ethnographyof Salvadoran of legalization struggles,Coutinis explicit in her characterization the researchas "anethnography a legal process ratherthanof a particular of group"(2000, p. 23). There is a need for such researchon "illegality"qua sociopolitical condition,in contradistinction researchon undocumented to migrantsqua "illegal aliens." A premierchallenge, therefore,is to delineatethe historicalspecificity of contemporarymigrations as they have come to be located in the legal (political) economies of particular nation-states.Only by reflectingon the effects of sociolegal, historicalcontexts on researchdoes it become possible to elaboratea critical of anthropological perspectivethatis not complicit with the naturalization migrant of undocumented "illegality."It thus becomes possible for the ethnographic study migrationsto producemigrant"illegality"as the kind of ethnographic object that can serve the ends of a distinctlyanthropological of nation-statesandtheir critique immigrationpolicies, as well as of the broaderpolitics of nationalism,nativism, and citizenship. What at first appearedto be a merely terminologicalmatter,then, upon more careful consideration,is revealed to be a centralepistemological and conceptual problem,with significantmethodologicalramifications,ethical implications,and political repercussions.

THE STUDYOF MIGRANT"ILLEGALITY" AS A THEORETICAL PROBLEM

Undocumentedmigrationsare, as I have already suggested, preeminentlylabor migrations,originatingin the uniquely restless creative capacity and productive power of people. The undocumentedcharacterof such movements draws our criticalscrutinyto regimesof immigration andso demandsan analyticaccount law of the law as such, which is itself apprehensible only througha theoryof the state. the specific characterof these movements as labor migrationswithin Likewise, a global capitalisteconomy demandsan analysis of the mobility of labor, which itself is only understandable througha critical theoreticalconsiderationof labor and capital as mutuallyconstitutingpoles of a single, albeit contradictory, social relation.

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DE GENOVA miThis review is concernedwith the theoreticalchallenge of denaturalizing not merely as a fetish thatcommandsdebunkingbut ratheras a grant"illegality," determinant real) abstraction (or producedas an effect of the practicalmateriality of the law. Sassen contendsthat migrationsare not autonomousprocesses-they "do not just happen;they are produced.And migrationsdo not involve just any (1998, p. 56). This argupossible combinationof countries;they are patterned" ment applies even more decisively to undocumentedmigrations:They are not self-generatingand random;they are producedand patterned.It is useful here to considera distinctionbetween thatwhich simply falls outside of anyprecise legal prohibitionand so is beyond the law's purview,on the one hand, and that which is constitutedas "illegal,"on the other(cf. Heyman& Smart1999, p. 1). The law of defines the parameters its own operations,engenderingthe conditions of possibility for "legal"as well as "illegal"practices."Illegalities"are constitutedand regimentedby the law--directly, explicitly,in a mannerthatpresumesto be more or less definitive (albeit not without manifold ambiguitiesand indeterminacies, always manipulablein practice)and with a considerabledegree of calculateddeat liberation.Furthermore, the risk of soundingtautological,within the context of state, the history of legal debateand action concerning"immigration," any given and the determinant effects so producedby the law comprise,precisely,a history. Thereis, therefore,a methodologicaldouble-emphasis here on the productivityof the law as well as on its historicity. The recentproliferation acceleration transnational and of has migration involved the globalemergenceof a varietyof sociohistoricallydistinctundocumented migrations as well as a concomitantvarietyof sociohistoricallyparticular configurations of migrant"illegality."Demographicperspectivesin particularseem stubbornly resistant,if not inherentlyaverse,to assigning the law a primaryrole in defining the character migrationprocesses. By recourseto a discourseof demographics of the effective operationof law, laws themselves appearto merely proinfluencing vide a neutralframework. Thus, the inequalitiesgeneratedby the law's apparently uniform applicationamong asymmetricallyconstitutedmigrationsfrom distinct This essay insists on the historicalspecisending countriestendto be naturalized. of the distinctconfigurations "illegality"that aremutuallyconstitutedby of ficity particular migrationswithinthe respectiveimmigration regimesof specific nationstates.Hence,this is likewise a call forresearchthatis emphatically concernedwith distinctmigrationsandthatrepudiatesthe validityof any claim to the existence of "the"(generic) "immigrant experience";there simply is no such animal. The history of immigrationlaw, in any given state, is nothing if not a history of ratherintricateand calculatedinterventions.This shouldnot be understoodto coherentand suggest that such a calculus is simply derivativeof some apparently unified strategy. Nor shouldthis contentionbe misconstrued imply thatthis histo tory is merely a functionalby-productof some presumed(and thus, teleological) structural logic. Both of these analytic frameworkswould suggest an extemrnality of structureand struggle, and thus, would fall into the trap of reifying (again) the already fetishized divide between social relations and the objectified forms

MIGRANT AND "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 425 of their appearance(Bonefeld 1994, 1995; Holloway 1995). That is, by treating the law as effectively definitive,coherent,andcomplete, such perspectivestend to the recapitulate reificationof the state'sauthorityandpower,which the stateitself propagates.On the contrary,the intricatehistory of law-makingis distinguished above all by the constitutiverestlessnessandrelativeincoherenceof variousstratehistorical gies, tactics, andcompromisesthatnation-states implementat particular to mediate the contradictionsimmanentin social crises and moments, precisely of political struggles,aboveall, aroundthe subordination labor(cf. Bonefeld 1994, laws serve as instruments supto 1995; Holloway 1994, 1995). Thus,immigration ply and refine the parametersof both discipline and coercion, but this is largely so throughthe deploymentof those laws as tactics. By emphasizingthis "tactical" characterof the law, it is imperativeto recall thattactics that aim to make a disciand plined and manageableobject of any given social group are conjunctural can never be assuredof the certaintyof theirrealization.These tactics are ensnaredin a struggleto subordinate intractability is intrinsicto the constitutiverole of the that laborwithin capital-what Marxdescribedas "a protracted more or less conand cealed civil war"(Marx 1976, p. 412 [1867]; cf. Bonefeld 1995, Holloway 1995). If we understand state to be a particularization "thepolitical"-which is to the of "of [andseparation] coercionfromthe immediateprocess of say, "theabstraction" exploitation"(Holloway 1994, p. 31; cf. Pashukanis1989, p. 143 [1929])-then it is useful hereto underscore laborplays such a constitutiverole not only within that capital but also within the capitalist state itself. As Holloway writes, "Once the categoriesof thoughtare understoodas expressionsnot of objectifiedsocial relations but of the struggleto objectify them, then a whole stormof unpredictability blows throughthem. Once it is understoodthatmoney, capital,the state ... " [and here I would add,emphatically,the law] " ... arenothingbutthe struggleto form, to discipline, to structure what Hegel calls 'the sheerunrestof life,' then it is clear thattheirdevelopmentcan be understoodonly as practice,as undetermined strugof gle" (Holloway 1995, p. 176). It is this appreciation the law-as undetermined the struggle-that I want to bring to bear on how we might apprehend historicity of immigrationlaw, especially as it has devised for its targetthose characteristically mobile social formationscomprisedby labor migrations,particularlythe undocumented. One prominentformulationof the theoreticalproblemconcerningthe produchas tivity of the law, and the productionof migrant"illegality"in particular, been derivedfromFoucault'sanalysis(1979) of modempoweras productive, specifand ically, from his discussion of "illegalities"and "the productionof delinquency" (1979, pp. 257-92). Behdad (1998) advancesa Foucauldeanrenderingof U.S.-Mexico borderenforcementin termsof discipline,surveillance,andthe production delinquencyof the critical role that the "illegality"of the undocumentedplays for emphasizing monolithicnordiscipliningandotheringall noncitizens,andthusfor perpetuating mative notions of national identity for citizens themselves. (Note that Behdad's invocationof the "delinquency" the undocumented of resonateswith Bustamante's

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DE GENOVA much earlier [1976] revisionist recourse to the sociological convention of "deviance" as a means for situatingsocial perceptionsof the undocumented culthat minatein discrimination subjectionto organizedcontrolby the state. (By way and of contrast,for an unreconstructed with deploymentof the categoryof "deviance" to undocumented Irishmigrantsin the United States, see Corcoran1993). respect however, Behdad refers only superficiallyto borderenforcement Unfortunately, for of andotherwiserevealsa regrettable disregard any consideration the practices law itself andits historicityin generating pertinent the sociopoliticalcategoriesthat his substantiate theoreticalinsights. Coutin (1993, 1996, 2000) is likewise might explicit in her efforts to deploy Foucault'sinsights for theorizingthe relationship between law and migration,but she is considerablymore precise than Behdadin her examinationof how immigrationlaw producesits subjects.Coutinadmirably which insists thatone must not presupposethe categoryof "illegalimmigration," for a considerationof U.S. itself should be under critical scrutiny,and argues law's productionof "illegality," stressingthe powerof the law to conimmigration stituteindividualsthroughits categoriesof differentiation. Coutin's Furthermore, work (1998, 2000; cf. Coutin & Chock 1995) is quite grounded(both historiand cally and ethnographically) does indeedprovideexcellent, detailed,empirical discussions of how immigrationlaw structured experiencesof undocumented the Salvadoranswho later sought asylum statusas refugees. Coutin'sreliance on a Foucauldeanconception of power leads to an emphatic interestin understanding immigrationlaw as comprising"morethan legal codes, (1993, p. 88, emphasisadded). policies, andbureaucratic government apparatuses" This orientation provesto be methodologicallyenablingfor Coutin'sethnography of how "a myriadof practices,usually carriedout by people who have no connection to the government, produceknowledgethatconstitutesindividualsas citizens, illegal aliens, legal residents, asylees, and so forth"(1993, p. 88). As suggested above, Coutinoffers crucialinsightsinto the productionof "illegality"in everyday approachescan make their greatestcontribulife-precisely where ethnographic tion. She points to a variety of ways that surveillancein the United States has been increasinglydisplacedin recentyears from immigrationauthorities,to local capacitiesrepolice, to otherstateofficials (e.g., clerksin a varietyof bureaucratic lated to publiceducation,housing,and welfarebenefits),to privatecitizens-from of employerverificationof the work authorization migrantworkers,to charitable who scrutinizeimmigration documentsas a conditionof theirsocial organizations service provisioning,to college admissionsandfinancialaid officerschargedwith monitoringthe legal statusesof prospectivestudents(Coutin1993,p. 97; cf. Coutin 2000, p. 11; cf. Mahler 1995, p. 161; for an example of an employercomplaining that the 1986 U.S. immigrationlaw "forcesus [employers]to do the police work for the government... to do their surveillance,"see Repak 1995, p. 157). In her work on Salvadoran "legalization" struggles,Coutin-revisiting a point made much earlier,in passing, by Castles & Kosack (1973, p. 105) with regard to undocumentedmigrantworkers in WesternEurope-creatively expands her theorizationof "illegality"in terms of a considerationof the multiple ways in

MIGRANT 'ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 427 AND which the contradiction betweenundocumented migrants'physicalandsocial presence and their official negation as "illegals"generates"spaces of nonexistence" (Coutin 2000, pp. 27-47). The social space of "illegality"is an erasureof legal and personhood-a space of forcedinvisibility,exclusion, subjugation, repression that"materializes around[theundocumented] wherevertheygo" (p. 30) in the form of real effects ranging from hungerto unemployment(or more typically, severe exploitation)to violence to death-that is nonethelessalways alreadyconfounded by their substantivesocial personhood.Coutinoutlines severaldimensionsof the nonexistence imposed by migrant"illegality":the delimitationof reality to that which can be documented(Coutin2000, p. 30; cf. Cintron1997, pp. 51-60; Mahler of 1995, pp. 159-87); the "temporalization presence,"wherebythe undocumented come to be qualified or disqualified for adjustmentsof legal status according to the accumulationof continuous,verifiable(documentable)"illegal"residence (Coutin2000, p. 31); "legalaconsanguinity," wherebyimmigration policies nullify the legal legitimacy of certainkinship ties (Coutin2000, pp. 32-33; cf. Heyman 1991, pp. 197-200); enforcedclandestinity(Coutin2000, p. 33; cf. Chavez 1992a, of pp. 157-69; Rouse 1992);the transformation mundaneactivities-such as working, driving,or traveling-into illicit acts,relatedto compoundedlegal ineligibility (Coutin 2000, p. 33; cf. De Genova 1999, 2003; Heyman 1998b; Mahler 1995); restrictedphysical mobility,paradoxically effected as a consequenceof the initial, unauthorized mobility of undocumentedmigration,which signifies a measureof captivity and social death (Coutin2000, pp. 33-34; cf. Corcoran1993, pp. 15155; Hagan 1994, pp. 163-64; Patterson1982; Rouse 1992); and restrictedsocial mobility,relatedto compoundedlegal ineligibility (Coutin2000, p. 34; cf. Jenkins 1978, Portes 1978). Althoughshe does not commenton it, anotherfeatureof these conditionsof nonexistencethatarises in the commentsof one of Coutin'sundocumentedinterlocutors somethingthatmightbe called an enforcedorientation is to the present,or in Carter's(1997, p. 196) eloquentphrase,"therevocabilityof the promise of the future,"occasioned by the uncertaintiesarisingfrom the possibilwhich inhibitthe undocumented from makingmany long-term ity of deportation, plans (Coutin 1993, p. 98; cf. Chavez 1992a, pp. 158-65; Hagan 1994, pp. 94, 129, 160), althoughthey neverthelessdo inspirevarious short-and medium-term to precautions(Chavez 1992a,p. 164). In all of this, Coutin'scontribution a deeper theorizationof everydaylife for undocumented and migrantsis extraordinary suggests many avenues for furtherethnographicinquiry,including the investigation of how the incommensurability multiple interrelatedforms of existence and of nonexistencecan enable certainevasions and subversionsof legal obligationsentailed by the putativesocial contractsfrom which the undocumented excluded are in (Coutin2000, pp. 43-44), andmore generally,may facilitateparticipation muland social spaces thatgeneratenew claims transnational, tiple political, economic, of belonging andformationsof citizenship(Coutin2000, pp. 45-47; cf. Appadurai 1996;Basch et al. 1994;De Genova 1998;Flores& Benmayor1997;Glick Schiller et al. 1992; Kearney1991, 1996; Rosaldo 1994, 1997; Rouse 1991, 1992, 1995a; Sassen 1996a, 1996b, 1998; Whiteford1979).

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DEGENOVA The requirement the undocumented refashiontheirsocial statuswith false for to raises more general theoreticalquestions about legal legibility. "Legal"papers" from the undocumented orderto provecontinin ization"requireddocumentation residencewithinthe space of the U.S. nation-state. verifiable A uous unauthorized became the condition of possibility of a documentablepresent,which itself past would serve as a conditionof eligibility for a documentedfuture(cf. Coutin2000, pp. 49-77). This points towardthe more general sociopolitical condition of "the have createdtheircitdocumented" themselves.Republicanforms of government izens in relationto a foundingdocument-a constitution--"andas a result, what had been a concreterelationship between subjectandmonarchbecame an abstract citizens a legal existence in linkage between individualsandthe law ... [granting] additionto theirphysical existence, a juridicalform of being that continuesto be affirmedthroughbirthcertificates,death certificates,and the like" (Coutin 1993, p. 94, emphasisin original;cf. Marrus1985). Thereis a more generalproblemof methodologicalpresentismthatis common in ethnographic work,however,to which Coutinbecomes susceptible.Thoughher examinationsof the revisions in immigrationlaw thattranspired duringher study are indisputablyincisive, Coutinneverthelesslargelypresupposesthe extantU.S. immigrationregime thatprecededthe 1980s and 1990s (the specific period of her research),andthusshe does not examinethehistoricalgenesis of the contemporary U.S. economy of "legality"and "illegality."As a result of these limitations of historical horizon, coupled with the theoreticalorientationsthat justify them by seeking to transcendan analysis of "legal codes" and "governmentpolicies" in favor of a privileging of the more capillary forms of power, Coutin's specific argumentaboutU.S. immigrationlaw's productionof "illegality"remainsrather that too partial.Indeed,thoughCoutin'sworkdemonstrates Foucauldean analyses of powerareinstructive law as a broaddiscursivefield of signifyingpractices,it for also demonstrates insufficienciesof such a theoreticalapproach,in its anemic the of sense of a fixed institutional treatment the state-not in the reified(structuralist) matrix,but ratheras a site of strugglein itself. Ultimately,Coutin's analysis of the law, as such, is much more illustrativeof the conditionsof possibility of "legalization" (the productionof "legal"statusfor who were previously undocumented)than of the law's actual migrants/refugees productionof "illegality"(cf. Coutin& Chock 1995). In contrast,Hagan(1994), in of her ethnography "legalization" undocumented Guatemalan Mayanmigrants by in the UnitedStates,concisely butadmirably identifieshow thehistoryof revisions in in U.S. immigrationlaw, beginning in 1965, has been instrumental producing in its contemporary Mexican/migrant"illegality" configuration(cf. De Genova Not confining her historicalhorizon to the narrowerparameters of 1999, 2003). her own study,Haganperceptivelyidentifieshow the earlierrevised immigration the policies actually"generated" new undocumentedinflux from Mexico, which came to be socially and politically constructedas a new "social problem"(Hagan 1994, p. 82). In additionto Coutin's (1998, 2000) and Hagan's (1994) studies, therehave been othernoteworthyethnographies have includedconsiderations that of undocumentedL (primarilyCentral American) migrants' participationin the

MIGRANT AND "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 429 "legalization"programestablishedby the 1986 U.S. immigrationact (Hamilton & Chinchilla2001, Mahler 1995, Repak 1995, Villar 1999; cf. Baker 1990, 1997; matter Hagan& Baker1993). It is nonethelessanother entirelyto studythe sociopolitical processes of "illegalization"(cf. Calavita 1982, p. 13; 1998, pp. 531-32, 557; Joppke 1999, pp. 26-31). of Indeed,"illegalizations"--orwhatI call the legal production migrant"illegalthe foundationalconditions of possibility for these programs,varity"-supply or iously called "legalizations,""regularizations," "amnesty,"that institute an of official adjustment statusfor the undocumented. Every "illegalization" implies the possibility of its own rectification.Once we recognize thatundocumented miare constitutedin order not to physically exclude them but instead, to grations socially include them underimposed conditions of enforced and protractedvulnerability,it is not difficultto fathomhow migrants'enduranceof many years of in of "illegality"can serve as a disciplinaryapprenticeship the subordination their it becomes no longer necessary to prolong the undocumented labor, after which condition.Furthermore, has every"legalization" an inherentlyepisodic andstrictly that in partialcharacter nevereliminatesthe field of "illegality"butrather, concert with the amassing of immense quantitiesof data for scrutinyby the authorities, simply refinesandreconstitutesthatfield for the ineligible who will remainundocumentedalong with all subsequent"illegal"arrivals.This kind of rationalization tendsto be a rather explicit featureof such "regularizing" operations,as in the 1986 law in the United States (De Genova 1999, 2003; cf. Coutin 2000, p. 16; Mahler 1995, pp. 159-87) as well as the 1972 regulationsenacted in France (Castells are 1975). Indeed, in this light, "legalizations" themselves disciplinaryand serve of as instruments laborsubordination. Here,it is useful to recallbothCoutin'spoint of concerningthe perceivedsubversiveness migrant"illegality"(1993, p. 95; 2000, pp. 43-44) andBehdad'sinsightinto the usefulnessof migrant"illegality"as ajustificationfor expandedsurveillanceagainstall of the state'ssubjects(1998, p. 106). An attemptto incorporate some of the Foucauldean insights into the productivity of power with Gramsci'sconceptionof hegemony as a contingentinterlocking of coercion and consent (1971 [1929-1935]), as well as a synthesis of legal anthropologicalperspectivesand critical legal realism, is elaboratedby Heyman & Smart(1999). Positing the analyticnecessity of coupling law and its evasion and the theoreticalchallenge of conceiving of states and illegal practicesas counterparts,these authorsdevelop a position that resembles my own perspective.They emphasize"theincompletenessof formalstatesandthe unlikelihoodthatthey will mastertheir own and people's 'illegal' maneuvers"(p. 2). In this way, they also critiquethe totalizing aspects of Foucault'streatmentof power and instead favor analyses that foregroundthe indeterminacy, ambiguity,open-endedness,and duof practicesandprocesses "onboth sides of the state/illegalpracticenexus" plicity (p. 7). They seek to destabilizethe hegemonicclaims by which statesprojecttheir own purportedly definitiveauthority, integrity,and boundedness,yet withoutever a focus on the state as such (pp. 10-11). Furthermore, they sustain relinquishing a combined attentionto both the legal formalismthat imbues an ideology of the purityof the state's orderliness,sovereignty,and legitimacy,on the one hand, and

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DEGENOVA the empiricalmessiness thatreveals how that ideology "disguisesthe ambiguous dealings of its agents"(pp. 11-14). Likewise, illegality is not essentializedas deviance, subversion,or the putativesubcultureof a stigmatizedgroup,but instead, mois construedas an option or resourceavailableto diversegroupsat particular as elites and statefunctionaries well as statesthemselves (pp. 13, ments, including 19). In theserespects,Heyman& Smartcriticallyrecuperate manyof the hallmarks of legal anthropology-an awarenessof the play of law in its practicalcontexts, of the persistenceof pluralandnonlegalmodalities,the importance sociohistorical specificities, and an analyticdistinctionbetween legitimacy and legality (p. 8). It is noteworthythatHeyman& Smart'sposition marks,in important respects, a considerabletheoreticaladvancefrom Heyman'searlierwork, in which he contends, rathermore simplistically,that"statesare aggregationsof rules ... and the bureaucratic requiredto implementthese rules; for short,states are organizations rulesof the game"(1994, p. 51). Heymanmakesa compellingcase for ethnography in his insightfulworkon the U.S. BorderPatrol(1995, 1998b) andthe ways thatde facto policies actuallyguide law enforcementwith respect to the undocumented. He falls prey to a familiar anthropologicaltrap, however, by articulatinga thedisinclinationto examine law itself, advancinginstead a oretical/methodological one-sidedpreferencefor studyingthe state"frombelow,"throughthe ethnography of local enforcementpractices (1998b). Clearly,Heyman & Smart'sapproachexplicitly requiring"thatstatesbe viewed 'frombelow' and 'fromwithin' as much as 'from above"'(1999, p. 15)-is more sophisticatedand significantlyproblematizes the one-sidednessof a complacentanthropological predilectionfor the view "frombelow." In muchof his priorwork(1991, pp. 40, 197; 1998a,pp. 24-29), Heyman'sgento eralorientation thepracticesof everydaylife, includingundocumented migrants' bordercrossings as well as law enforcement'sefforts at apprehension,obstructs of his capacityto appraisethe largerforces at workin the "illegalization" migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border.ThoughHeymandiscernsthe decisive facts in an the historyof U.S. immigrationlaw since 1965 thatwould substantiate account he of the legal productionof migrant"illegality"in its contemporary formulation, as if dramaticrevisions nonetheless persists in treatingundocumented migration it. in of the law had not been instrumental restructuring Heymanargues: control':numerical laws of the UnitedStatesrely on 'numerical The migration mismatchthe social process for finitesocial types .... Yetsuchnumbers targets of migrationand inclusion into the host society .... In real-worldmigratory situations,people adaptnumerical-legal categoriesto these actualconnections intentions.... whenpossible, andignorethe law when it does not fit migratory Unlike numericalcontrol, actualmigrationis flexible in who enters and how long they stay,and adaptsquickly to the actualniches and labordemand(that is, the realities)of U.S. society. As a result,eitherthe migrantnetworksystem the manipulates legal systemto its own ends... orpeople migrateillegally .... of If currentU.S. migrationis disordered,the reordering immigrationsought here simulates, but enriches, the naturalistic migration system. (1998a, pp. 28-29; emphasisadded)

MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 431 AND Here, Heymanproblematizesthe law's quotasandpreferences,but his critique remainsat the formallevel, suggestinga mere mismatchbetweenlegal abstraction and actualmigrationpatternsthathe depicts as "naturalistic" systematic.This and is a rathergrave example of how the fetishization of "demographics," referred to above, can derail a critical analysis of the law. By naturalizingmigrationprocesses themselves, Heymantends here to naturalize"illegality"and diminishthe its significanceof the historicalspecificitiesof the law by characterizing apparatus of "numericalcontrol"as little more than a symptom of an abstractrationality ill-matchedto the "natural" of flexibility and opportunism "real-world" migration scenarios.Again, Heyman& Smart'sinsistence on the combinedexaminationof more promising illegal practicesin concertwith the law itself is an immeasurably line of inquiry. has Everydaylife for the undocumented become moreandmore saturated the by regimes thatreceiving states impose throughimmigrationlaws. Historicalscholarshipon U.S. immigrationlaw has been recently described as still "a relatively new field"(Lee 1999, p. 86). Nonetheless,recentscholarshipon the historyof U.S. and the immigration,naturalization, citizenshiplaw has begun to demonstrate extent to which legislationis in fact only one featureof the law. Researchon law also decisions affecting requiresan investigationof judicial cases and administrative the implementationof admission and deportationprocedures,as well as policies regulatingaccess to employment,housing, education, and eligibility for various social welfarebenefits(Ancheta1998, Chang1999, Fitzgerald1996, HaneyL6pez 1996, Hing 1993, Johnson1993, Kim 1994, Salyer 1995;cf. Lee 1999).Anthropolneed not become legal ogists interestedin the everydaylife of the undocumented historians.Yet, with respectto the "illegality"of undocumented migrants,a viable criticalscholarship franklyunthinkable is withoutan informedinterrogation imof migrationlaw. However,anthropologistsare often insufficientlyconcernedwith, if not sorely negligent of, even the elementaryaspects of the legislative history affectingthe formulationof "illegality"itself, especially as it pertainsto particular make even brief passing mention of migrations.Moreover,when ethnographers immigrationlaw, it is not uncommonto find thatcrucialdetails of these legal histories have been woefully misrepresented (e.g., Chavez 1992a, p. 15; Chock 1991, transhistorical p. 291). Thus, the treatmentof "illegality"as an undifferentiated, fixtureis, sadly, a recurringmotif in much of the scholarshipon migration(e.g., Passel 1994, Reimers 1985).

THE VISIBILITY "ILLEGAL OF IMMIGRANTS" AND THE INVISIBILITY THE LAW OF

Migrant"illegality"is produced as an effect of the law, but it is also sustained as an effect of a discursive formation(cf. Carter1997, pp. 129-58). Calling the apparentnaturalnessof migrant"illegality"into question requires a critique of the ways that the sociospatial presuppositionsand conceits of nationalismhave significantlyshaped the very conceptualizationof migrationitself and a critique of how scholarshave reproducedwhat Alonso (1994) calls "dominantstrategies

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DEGENOVA in of spatialization" the very paradigmsthat organize academic knowledge (De Genova 1998). It is imperativein a review such as this to clarify that the social science scholarshipof undocumentedmigrationis itself often ensnaredin this discursiveformationof "illegality"(cf. De Genova 1999, 2003). social science literature, enone Indeed,across an extensive,multidisciplinary, counters a remarkablevisibility of "illegal immigrants"swirling enigmatically aroundthe stunninginvisibility of the law. Only infrequentlydoes one encounter an explicit discussion of the law, much less the history of its revision and reformulation.When immigrationlaw is addresseddirectly, a detailed empirical investigationof its actualoperationsis not provided(e.g., Cardenas1975, Garcia 1995, Heller 1992, Johnson 1997, Sassen 1990). The materialforce of law, its of its instrumentality, historicity,its productivity some of the most meaningfuland of salient parameters sociopolitical life-all of this seems strangelyabsent, with withinthe fetishismof the law (Pashukaratherfew exceptions.This entanglement even the work of scholars nis 1989 [1929]; cf. Collins 1982) tends to characterize who criticizethe disciplinarycharacter the BorderPatrolandthe policing of miof statusesandwho questionor frankly grantworkers'documentedor undocumented rejectthe dubiousdistinctionbetween"legal"and"illegal"migrations(e.g., Cockcroft 1986, p. 214; Johnson 1997, pp. 171-74; Mirandd1987, p. 127). Ratherthan investigatecriticallywhat the law actuallyaccomplishes,much scholarshiptakes the statedaims of the law, such as deterring undocumented migration,at face-value and hence falls into a naive empiricism.Many scholarsthen proceed to evaluate migrationlegislation-and specifically,variouseffortsto restrictundocumented in orderto sustainthe claim that these legal efforts were somehow not effective or were simply "failures" thereis (e.g., Cornelius1989, pp. 10-14). Furthermore, a subcategoryof scholarshipthat is derivativeof this naive empiricism,whereby the overtlyrestrictiveintentof particular laws is not only takenat face-value, but also supplied with a preemptiveapology. Such commentators(e.g., HondagneuSotelo 1994, p. 26) assert that the effects on particular migrationsof changes in a state's immigrationlaws can be somehowpresumedto have been inadvertentand unanticipated thusunintended consequences.This show of "goodfaith"toward the state, and its underlyingbelief in the law's transparency, does not even allow in for the possibility that the law may have been instrumental generatingparameters of migrant"illegality."Still other researchers(e.g., Reimers 1985, Tienda 1989, Zolberg 1990) do identify crucialaspects of legal historiesthatresultin the of expansionor reconstitution migrant"illegality," only then to persistin treating as a transparent self-evidentfact. There is, in short,an and "illegal immigration" unfortunatetaken-for-grantedness bedevils much of this scholarship,resultthat of from an uncriticalreproduction hegemonic common sense. In the best of ing cases (e.g., Bach 1978; Burawoy 1976; Calavita 1982; Cockcroft 1986; Coutin 1996, 2000; Kearney1996, 1998; Portes 1978; Tienda 1989; Zolberg 1990), the explanatorypower of the work is dulled, and its critical potentialis inhibited;in the worst scholarsnaturalizethe categoryof "illegality." The tenuous distinction between "legal" and "illegal" migration,which has become increasingly salient throughoutthe world, was deployed to stigmatize

MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 433 AND andregulatemainly Mexicanmigrantworkersin the United Statesfor muchof the twentiethcentury. and Indeed,theAnnualReportsof theU.S. Immigration Naturalization Service (INS) long dividedstatisticsfor theirapprehensions "deportable of aliens" into two discrete categories-Mexicans and All Others.In 1973, for instance,the INS reportedthatMexicansliterallycomprised99%of all apprehended (Cardenas1975, p. 86). Se"deportablealiens" who had entered surreptitiously lective enforcementof the law--coordinated with seasonal labordemandby U.S. employers (as well as the occasional exigencies of electoral politics)-has long maintained revolvingdoorpolicy,wherebymass deportations concurrent a are with an overall, large-scale, more or less permanentimportationof Mexican migrant labor (Cockroft1986). One of the consequencesof this historyof selective border enforcementis that the sociopolitical category "illegal alien" itself-inseparable from a distinct"problem" "crisis"of governanceand sovereignty-has come to or be saturated with racializeddifferenceandindeedhas long servedas a constitutive dimension of the racialized inscriptionof "Mexicans"in the United States (De Genova 1999, 2003; cf. Ngai 1999, 2003). Although he has ratherlittle to say directly about undocumentedmigrationand the social condition of "illegality," (1996) advancesthe idea of a "commodityidentity"for Mexicansin VWlez-Ibaifiez the United States-a concept originallyarticulated specificallyfor undocumented Mexican migrantsby Bustamante(1978). VWlez-Ibdfiez suggests important ways in which the stigmatization undocumented of Mexicans-as a people reducibleto the disposability of their labor for a price-has become centralto the racialization of all Mexicans/Chicanosand otherLatinos(regardlessof immigrationstatus or even U.S. citizenship). During the GreatDepression, this more plainly racist characterof Mexican criminalizationbecame notoriously and abundantly manifest, culminatingin the systematic exclusion of Mexican migrantsand Chicano (Mexican American)U.S. citizens alike from employmentand economic relief, followed by the forcible deportationof at least 415,000 Mexicans and Chicanos and the "voluntary" of & repatriation 85,000 more (Balderrama Rodriguez 1995, 1994, Hoffman 1974). People were expelled with no regardto Guerin-Gonziles their status as legal residentsor U.S. citizens by birth-simply for being "Mexicans."The conjunctures migrant"illegality," of nativism,andracializationshould become increasinglyprominent futureresearch(cf. Balibar1991a,b,c,d;Bosniak in 1996, 1997; Chavez 2001; De Genova & Ramos-Zayas2003; Carter1997; Perea 1997; Pred 2000; Sanchez 1999; Vila 2000). Though Mexican migrantsare very commonly the implied if not overt focus of mass-mediated, journalistic,as well as scholarlydiscussions of "illegal aliens" Garcia 1980, Johnson 1997), the genesis of their condition of "il(Chavez 2001, legality" is seldom examined. In my own research,I have sought to interrogate the history of changes in U.S. immigrationlaw throughthe specific lens of how these revisions--especially the imposition, since 1965, of numericalrestrictions on "legal"migrationfrom WesternHemispherecountries-have had a disproportionately deleterious impact on Mexican migrants(De Genova 1999, 2003). In her historicalresearch,Ngai (1999, 2003) makes an analogous argumentfor the period beginning in the second half of the 1920s, on the basis of substantially

434

DE GENOVA differentmodes of migrantinclusionandexclusion.It is crucialto explorehow the U.S. nation-statecame to deploy a varietyof differenttactics at distincthistorical moments,to systematicallyrecreate"illegality"in ways thathave ever more thoroughly constrainedand circumscribedthe social predicamentsof undocumented migrants. Mexican scholarsof Mexican migrationto the United States (publishingprimarilyin Spanish,but also, to a limited extent,in English;e.g., Bustamante1972, the 1976, 1978) have tendedto be much more inclined to approach topic in terms of the structural featuresof U.S. capitalismand labordemandandto engage in the kinds of analyses thatcast a criticallight on "illegalization." Many U.S. scholars (including some Chicanos), however, when not preoccupiedwith policy-driven questions, more typically have tended to approachthe subjectthroughthe hegemonic sociological rubricof "settlement" "assimilation" De Genova 1999, and (cf. pp. 19-104; n.d.). (On this score, arguingfor Mexican migrationas a temporary Gamio 1971 [1930], as a studentof nationaleconomic developmentopportunity, Boas and a founderof Mexican Anthropology,is the most prominentexception among Mexican researchers.)Beginning with the very earliest efforts of anthropologists and sociologists to producesocial science accountsof Mexicanmigrants in the United States, the literaturehas been distinguishedby a strikingly disproportionate,seemingly compulsive obsession with "the transition... from an laborersto one of settlers"(Clark1974 [1908], p. 520). immigrationof temporary In 1911, the DillinghamU.S. ImmigrationCommissionproducedits own assessment: "Because of their [Mexicans'] strong attachmentto their native land, low intelligence, illiteracy,migratorylife, and the possibility of their residence here being discontinued,few become citizens of the United States"(quoted in Weber further: "Whilethey arenot easily assimilated,this is of no very 1982, p. 24). AndL as long as most of themreturnto theirnativeland. In the case of greatimportance the Mexican,he is less desirableas a citizen thanas a laborer" (quotedin Calavita 1992, p. 180; cf. Reisler 1976a, 1996 [1976b]). In a significantsense, the themes thatrevolve arounddiscerningwhetheror not Mexican migrantsto the United States can or will "assimilate," the varietyof and that this question has been elaboratedthroughthe "sojourner"-"settler" ways binary, have remained quite ubiquitous ever since (e.g., Gamio 1971 [1930]; Bogardus 1970 1[1934];Chavez 1988, 1991, 1992a,b, 1994; Cornelius 1992; Durand& Massey 1992; Hondagneu-Sotelo1994; Massey 1987; Massey et al. 1987; Massey & Liang 1989; Portes & Bach 1985; Smith 1996; Suirez-Orozco ShadowedLives: 1998;Rouse 1992;Villar 1990). In his ethnographic monograph, in AmericanSociety, Chavez(1992a) explicitly counUndocumented Immigrants as and (as terposesthe analyticcategories"migrants" "sojourners") "settlers," he storyto be told is thatof the transiexplainsthathe "concludedthatthe important tion people undergoas they leave the migrantlife and instead settle in the United States"(1992a, p. 4; cf. 1991, Chavezet al. 1989). Chavezthenproceedsto invoke an anthropologicalanalogy-the rite of passage--as the organizing theoretical the metaphorthroughwhich he characterizes process of migrant"settlement":

AND MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 435 For undocumentedmigrants,crossing the borderis a territorial passage that marksthe transition fromone way of life to another[. ...] A territorial passage, like more conventionalrites of passage, can be divided into three important phases: separation from the known social group or society, transition (the 'liminal' phase), and incorporationinto the new social groupor society [ ...] [B]y examiningpractical, everydayexperiences,modes of behavior,andknowlundocumented edge acquiredby immigrantsduringtheir territorial passage, we can begin to understandthis transitionand the problem of the undocuinto the largersociety [ ...] mentedimmigrant'sincorporation Forsome the transition phasebegins with crossingthe border,butnevercomes to a close; these people neveraccumulateenoughlinks of incorporation to ... allow them to become settlers and feel partof the new society. They remain 'liminals,' outsidersduringtheir stay in the United States, often returningto their country of origin after a relatively brief time [. ...] However, even individuals who have accumulateda great numberof such links may find full incorporationinto the new society blocked because of their undocumented statusand the largersociety's view of them as illegal aliens [. . ..] This observationgives addedsignificanceto the questionsthis book poses [. . ..] How do the experiences of undocumentedmigrantsinfluencetheir decision to return home or settle in this country?(Chavez 1992a, pp. 4-6, emphasesin original; cf. 1991) of Chavez's schema of the "transition," and "settlement," "incorporation" unto drivenby documentedLatinosin theirpassage from "migrants" "immigrants," the teleological analogyof "ritesof passage"in the life cycles of "individuals," almost perfectlyreiteratesPark'slogic in "Migration the MarginalMan"(Park and 1980[1914/1928]), whereby the migrantis characterizedas a "culturalhybrid" moving across the marginalzone between two societies. What seems to matter, above all, to Chavez, is to repudiatethe allegation that undocumentedMexican and CentralAmericanmigrantsare mere "sojourners" 1991, 1994). "Illegal(cf. as such, however,is treatedhere as little more than a prejudicialperception ity" on the part of citizens toward newcomers that obstructstheir integration.With regardto the genesis of "illegality"for these Latino (mainly Mexican) migrants, the Chavez (1992a, p. 15) not only recapitulates dominantmythology of the 1965 U.S. immigrationlaw as a grandliberalization also goes furtherby celebrating but as "egalitarian" introductionof a numericalquota for WesternHemisphere the migrations-precisely thatwhich, in this reform,was most illiberalandrestrictive (and inordinatelydetrimentalfor Mexican migrationin particular)(De Genova 1999, 2003). The figureof the "sojourner" alwaysbeen genderedas male, andprofitfrom has his laborhas relied upon exploiting the separationof the (migrant)working man fromthe woman(andchildren)who remained"inhis nativeland"in orderto defray some of the costs of the reproductionof labor power (Chock 1991, 1995, 1996;

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DEGENOVA
Coutin & Chock 1995; Gonzalez & Fernandez 1979; Hondagneu-Sotelo1994; Kearney1986; Rouse 1992; cf. Burawoy 1976; Kearney1991, 1996, 1998; Ortiz, this volume).Whathasbeen insufficiently exploredis how thehistoricalproduction has of the racializedfigureof "theMexican,"as male "sojourner," been rendered This linkagehas become morereadilyvisiwith migrant"illegality." synonymous ble with the increasingequationof undocumented migrantwomen with permanent settlement(Chock 1995, 1996; Coutin & Chock 1995; Roberts migrant(family) 1997; cf. Lowe 1996, pp. 159-60). Chock poignantlyidentifiesthe pervasivepresumptionthat "a naturalrelationshipbetween babies and mothers[blurs]lines of rights and responsibilitiesmappedby the state between two categoriesof people such that"women'sfertility[multiplies]the riskto the nation" (citizen andalien),"' (Chock 1995, p. 173).

THE BORDERSPECTACLE
has Undocumentedmigration,andMexicanmigrationin particular, been rendered "loss of control"of its borders synonymouswith the U.S. nation-state's purported and has supplied the pretextfor what has in fact been a continuous intensification of militarizedcontrolon the U.S.-Mexico border(Dunn 1996, Jim6nez 1992; a cf. Andreas1998;Heyman1991, 1999;Kearney1991, 1998). Overstaying visathe ratherdiscrete act by which very significantnumbersof people become undocumented migrants-is, after all, not terriblydramatic.Hence, it is precisely "the Border"thatprovidesthe exemplarytheaterfor stagingthe spectacle of "the illegal alien" that the law produces. The elusiveness of the law, and its relative at invisibility in producing"illegality,"requiresthe spectacle of "enforcement" the U.S.-Mexico borderthat rendersa racializedmigrant"illegality"visible and fact. lends it the commonsensicalair of a "natural" of Thereis a patternof policing thatis criticalfor the perpetuation the "revolvof aliens" ing door"policy: the great majorityof INS apprehensions "deportable crossedthe Mexicanborder,andthis consist of those who havejust surreptitiously has increasinglybeen the case. These enforcementproclivities and perogatives, contributionto the and the statistics they produce, have made an extraordinary commonplacefallacy thatMexicans accountfor virtuallyall "illegal aliens,"have servedto restagethe U.S.-Mexico borderas the theaterof an enforcement"crisis," name for migrant and have rendered"Mexican" distinctivenational/racialized the com(1995) describeswhathe calls "thevoluntary-departure "illegality." Heyman at aliens"apprehended the U.S.-Mexico border(who plex," whereby"deportable are, predictably,overwhelminglyMexican) "arepermitted(indeed, encouraged) to waive theirrightsto a deportation hearingandreturnto Mexico withoutlengthy detention,expensivebonding,andtrial,"andthen,uponreleasein Mexico nearthe border,"they can and do repeattheir attemptsto evade borderenforcementuntil they finally succeed in entering"(1995, pp. 266-67). Heymanthusestablishesthat the U.S. state maximizes arrestsand enhances the mass-mediatedimpressionof and "border control,"while actuallynegatingthe efficacy of those apprehensions

AND "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 437 MIGRANT labormigration. Indeed,undocumented facilitatingundocumented border-crossing has become a staple for journalistic"participant-observation"; e.g., Conover see, 1987; Decker 1994; Dwyer 1994. The operationof the "revolvingdoor" at the U.S.-Mexico bordercouples an detentions,anddeportations, increasinglymilitarizedspectacle of apprehensions, with the banality of a continuous importationof undocumentedmigrant labor (Cockcroft1986). Indeed,Mexicanas well as CentralAmericanmigrants'bordercrossing narratives quite often relateexperiencesof tremendoushardshipthat are commonlyjuxtaposedwith accountsof easy passage (Chavez 1992a;Davis 1990; De Genova 1999, 2003; Kearney 1991; Martinez 1994; e.g., Guill6n 2001, Hart are with accounts 1997, P6rez 1991). These samenarratives commonlypunctuated life in the United States that are distinguishedby arduoustravail and abunof dantexploitation(De Genova 1999, 2003; Kearney1991; Mahler 1995; Martinez 1994). The legal productionof Mexican (and also CentralAmerican)migrant"illegality"requiresthe spectacle of enforcementat the U.S.-Mexico borderfor the spatializeddifferencebetween the nation-statesof the United States and Mexico (and effectively, all of Latin America) to be socially inscribedupon the migrants themselves-embodied in the spatialized(andracialized)statusof "illegal alien." The vectors of race and space, therefore,areboth crucialin the constitutionof the class specificity of Mexican labormigration(De Genova 1999, 2003). The "illegality"effect of protracted enduringvulnerabilityhas to be recreand atedmoreoften thanon the occasions of crossingthe border.Indeed,the 1986 U.S. legislation,for instance,which institutedfor the firsttime federalsanctionsagainst employers who knowingly hired undocumentedworkers, was tantamountto an extension of the "revolvingdoor"to the internallabor marketof each workplace whereundocumented demigrantswere employed. By establishingan affirmative fense for all employers who could demonstratethat they had complied with the verificationprocedure-simply by having filled out and kept on file a routine1-9 form attestingto the documentcheck, withoutanyrequirement they determine that the legitimacyof documentspresentedin thatverificationprocess-the legislation insulatedemployers from any penalty.What this meant in practice was that the docuemployersanctionprovisionsgenerateda flourishingindustryin fraudulent ments,which merelyimposedfurther expenses andgreaterlegal liabilitiesuponthe migrantworkersthemselves, while supplying protectionfor employers (Chavez 1992a, pp. 169-71; Cintron 1997, pp. 51-60; Coutin 2000, pp. 49-77; Mahler 1995, pp. 159-87; cf. U.S. Departmentof Labor 1991, p. 124). It also requireda heighteningof INS raidson workplaces.Given thatinspectorsarerequiredto give employers a three-daywarningprior to inspections of hiring records, to make it "pragmatically easy" for employersto comply with the letterof the law (Calavita 1992, p. 169), and that,in orderto avoid fines associatedwith infractions,employers typically fire or temporarilydischarge workersknown to be undocumented priorto a raid-these provisionshave primarilyservedto introducegreaterinstability into the labor-market experiencesof undocumented migrantsandto institute an internal"revolvingdoor."Whatareputatively"employersanctions,"then,have

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DE GENOVA the actuallyfunctionedto aggravate migrants'conditionof vulnerabilityandhave new penaltiesupon the undocumented workersthemselves (cf. Sassen & imposed Smith 1992). The "illegalities"of everyday life are often, literally,instantiatedby the lack of various forms of state-issueddocumentationthat sanctionone's place within or outside the stricturesof the law (Cintron 1997, Coutin 2000, Hagan 1994, Mahler 1995). The policing of public spaces outside of the workplace, moreover, serves to discipline undocumentedmigrantsby surveilling their "illegality" and exacerbatingtheir sense of ever-presentvulnerability(Chavez 1992a; Coutin2000; De Genova 1999, 2003; Heyman 1998b;Mahler1995;Rouse 1992). The lack of a driver's license, for instance, is typically presumedby police in most states in the U.S. to automaticallyindicate a migrant'smore generally undocumentedcondition (De Genova 1999, 2003; cf. Mahler 1995, pp. 146-47).1 Such forms of everyday"illegality"are responsiblefor many undocumentedmigrants' encounterswith everydayforms of surveillanceand repression.But there are also those "illegalities"thatmore generallypertainto the heightenedpolicing directedat the bodies, movements,and spaces of the poor-especially those spain tialized as "foreigners" the United States, Europe,Canada,and Australiaand those racialized as not-white in particular(cf. Balibar 1991a,c,d;Calavita 1998; Carter1997; Haney L6pez 1996; Lowe 1996; Paul 1997; Pred 2000; Satzewich 1991; Saxton 1971). Subjection to quotidianforms of intimidationand harassment reinforces undocumentedmigrants' vulnerabilityas a highly exploitable workforce. Yet the disciplinaryoperationof an apparatus the everydayproductionof for is neversimply intendedto achievethe putativegoal of depormigrant"illegality" and tation.It is deportability, not deportation se, thathas historicallyrendered per undocumented migrantlabor a distinctlydisposablecommodity.Therehas never been sufficientfundingfor the INS to evacuatethe United Statesof undocumented nor migrants meansof deportations, even for the BorderPatrolto "holdthe line." by The INS is neitherequippednor intendedto actuallykeep the undocumented out. The very existence of the enforcementbranchesof the INS (andthe BorderPatrol, in particular)is premised upon the continued presence of migrantswhose undocumentedlegal statushas long been equatedwith the disposable (deportable), characterof the commodity that is their labor-power. Inultimately"temporary" the Border Patrol has, since its inception, defined unauthorized deed, although entry as "a continuousoffense [that]is not completed ... until the alien reaches his interiordestination,"and so defined its jurisdictionas effectively the entire interior (Ngai 2003), INS enforcementefforts have disproportionately targeted the U.S.-Mexico border,sustaininga zone of relativelyhigh tolerancewithin the interior(Chavez 1992a, Delgado 1993). The true social role of INS enforcement are in that to States issuedriver's licenses anystate resident 1There onlyfourstates theUnited who can pass the driving of test, regardless theirlegal status; they areNorthCarolina,
Tennessee,Utah, and Virginia(New York Times,4 August 2001).

MIGRANT "ILLEGALITY" DEPORTABILITY 439 AND (and the BorderPatrol)is in maintainingthe operationof the borderas a "revolvas ing door"(Cockcroft1986), simultaneouslyimplicatedin importation much as and sustainingthe border'sviability as a filterfor the deportation(Calavita1992), unequaltransferof value (Kearney1998). Migrant"illegality"is lived througha palpable sense of deportability,which is to say, the possibility of deportation,the possibility of being removed from the space of the nation-state.There are some significant analogies between migrant deportabilityand the threat of deportationconfronted by denationalized citizens [as, for example, with EuropeanJews and Gypsies underNazi Germany (Agamben 1998, pp. 126-35, 166-80), or women who were U.S. citizens by birth but denationalizedfor having marriednoncitizenmen (Bredbenner1998), or political dissidentsunderMcCarthy-era legislation that still remainsin effect in the United States (e.g., Randall 1987; cf. Nathan 1991, pp. 90-108)], but my focus here is the specificity of migrantdeportability. What makes deportabilityso decisive in the legal productionof migrant"illegality"and the militarizedpolicing of nation-statebordersis that some are deportedin order that most may remain (un-deported)-as workers,whose particular migrantstatusmay thus be rendered "illegal." Therefore,migrant"illegality"is a spatialized social condition that is frequentlycentral to the particularways that migrantsare racialized as "illegal aliens"withinnation-statespaces, as for examplewhen "Mexicans" racialized are in relationto "American"-ness the United States(De Genova 1998, 1999, 2003). in Moreover,the spatializedconditionof "illegality"reproducesthe physicalborders of nation-statesin the everydaylife of innumerable places throughoutthe interiors of the migrant-receiving states. Thus, the legal productionof "illegality"as a distinctly spatializedand typically racialized social condition for undocumented for migrantsprovides an apparatus sustainingtheir vulnerabilityand tractability as workers.

CONCLUSION
There is nothing matter-of-fact aboutthe "illegality"of undocumentedmigrants. As Calavita has argued with respect to immigrationlaw in Spain, "There may be no smoking gun, but there is nonetheless a lot of smoke in the air" (1998, is p. 557). "Illegality" the productof immigrationlaws-not merelyin the abstract sense that without the law, nothing could be construedto be outside of the law; nor simply in the generic sense that immigrationlaw constructs,differentiates, and ranksvariouscategoriesof "aliens"-but in the more profoundsense thatthe the history of deliberateinterventionsthathave revised and reformulated law has entailed an active process of inclusion through"illegalization." Undocumentedmigrantlaborhas been criminalizedas "illegal"and subjected to excessive and extraordinary forms of policing. The undocumentedhave been denied fundamental humanrightsandmanyrudimentary social entitlements,consigned to an uncertainsociopolitical predicament,often with little or no recourse to any semblance of protection from the law. The category "illegal alien" is a

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DE GENOVA profoundlyuseful andprofitableone thateffectively serves to createand sustaina legally vulnerable-and hence, relativelytractableand thus "cheap"-reserve of labor.Thatpropositionis quite old; indeed, it is so well establishedand well documentedas to be irrefutable (cf., for example, Burawoy 1976; Bustamante1972, Calavita1990, 1992; Castells 1975; Cockcroft 1986; Delgado 1993; 1976, 1978; Galarza1964; Gamio 1971 [1930]; Gledhill 1998; Grasmuck1984; HondagneuSotelo 2001; Jenkins1978; Kearney1996; Kwong 1997; McWilliams1949; Piore 1979;Rouse 1995a;Samora1971; Sassen 1988; Smith 1998;Taylor1932). A cencritical tralcontentionof this review has been that,in and of itself, this important is insufficientinsofar as its insight into the consequences of migrant"illegality" We origin may be left unexaminedand thus naturalized. must go furtherand examine the fundamental sociospatial origin of the status"illegal"(andits attendant condition of deportability)in the law itself-what I call the legal productionof migrant"illegality."

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