Is Incorporation of Unauthorized Immigrants Possible? Inclusion and Contingency for Nonstatus Migrants and Legal Immigrants

Abstract

[Excerpt] What does inclusion for nonstatus migrants look like? How do we recognize and measure inclusion for this population? How might we model inclusion for nonstatus migrants? This essay addresses these questions, drawing primarily on empirical examples from the United States and Spain. Although Spain has become a country of immigration relatively recently, both countries have received large numbers of unauthorized immigrants, especially in the early part of the 2000s. These two countries also illustrate different means of inclusion for unauthorized migrants. During most of the 2000s opportunities for the “regularization” of unauthorized migrants have arguably been greater in Spain than in the United States. Yet in Spain the process has also been highly contingent, with a greater likelihood that regularized immigrants will fall out of status (Calavita 2005). The model of inclusion I develop here aims to capture such varied circumstances across national contexts.