Confronting the Nation and Arguing for Citizenship: the struggle for immigrant rights by DACA recipients in the United States

The aim of this paper is to analyze the different meanings of citizenship in political struggles over the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United States, especially those who have entered the country as minors. By inserting the analysis in an empirical situation, that is the fight over policies for undocumented migrants who migrated as minors, and which resulted in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), it is argued that there was a detachment of citizenship from the nation-state, in which "nationality" no longer informs the meaning that citizenship has among undocumented immigrants in the country. DACA was a policy promulgated in 2012, during the Barack Obama administration (Democratic Party), and which conceded benefits to a specific group of undocumented migrants: those who entered as minors, were continuously present in the country, had no criminal record, and were enrolled in high or higher education, or served the military, among other requirements. Hence, it created another level of immigration status, an in-between of being documented and being completely undocumented. We argue, in this paper, that the mobilization that led to DACA, the policy itself, and its functioning has pushed the meaning of citizenship, by contesting the presence of the nation as responsible for defining who belongs and who does not. In order to do this, it is first analyzed through Hannah Arendt how citizenship has been a concept related to the nation, and how this was revealed problematic during the Second World War, when losing one’s nationality meant the loss of any political community to claim one’s rights. Then, it is investigated the meanings citizenship has had in the United States in relation to the undocumented youth movement, especially considering the different views of citizenship argued in the more general undocumented immigrant movement demonstrated by Walter Nicholls. Finally, we delve into thirty-two in-depth interviews conducted in the United States with DACA recipients, DACA eligible, allies, activists and attorneys on the meanings citizenship has acquired along the fight for rights of the immigrant youth. We conclude that, by arguing undocumentedness as a limitation for one’s access to claim and enforcement of rights in the United States, the immigrant youth reinvents citizenship, pushing its meaning beyond the nation-state, redefining the concept without the presence of nationality and allegiance to the nation.