There are approximately 2.3 million mixed-status families in the United States, containing varied combinations of citizens, permanent legal residents, undocumented immigrants, and individuals in legal limbo. These families offer an opportunity to examine the functioning of the contemporary state and its penetration at the household level. For many Latino youth, experiences are framed not only by their own but other family members' legal status. This article reports on health care seeking experiences of mixed-status families in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and the impact of the recent health care reform (Affordable Care Act). We utilized qualitative ethnographic methods including 55 semistructured interviews with mixedstatus families and 43 interviews with health care providers, caseworkers, and public health officials. Results indicate that changes accompanying the reform directly and indirectly affect mixed-status households' ability to access care. We describe strategies in times of illness, including those unique to border communities. We conclude that, for successful implementation of policies associated with health care reform, broader issues related to immigration status must be addressed, especially anxieties regarding future chances of regularization. These uniquely affect mixed-status families, create a ripple effect on all household members, and result in unintended consequences for U.S. citizen children. Implications point to the need for a pathway to citizenship for parents as a basic step in improving well-being of children.
The containment of immigrants along the US/Mexico border illuminates the complex spatial implications associated with the securitization of migration enforcement. The production of marginalized, carceral national spaces has particular consequences for the people who inhabit them, as processes of spatial illegality shape their daily lives. Our analyses draw on five years of ethnographic study in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Here, we focus on the experiences of sixty‐one undocumented youth, including recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to explore how the spatial violence created by checkpoints and everyday policing practices lead to experiences of confinement and accelerate processes of social exclusion. Spillover effects occur as all inhabitants must pass through inspection points and demonstrate proof of identity and legal residency; this contributes to the reformulation of citizenship. To this, our article adds insight into how social membership is experienced at the checkpoints so that “citizenship” and “authorization” become conflated. Early childhood and youth experiences of freely crossing spaces with school programs yet living with uncertain and precarious status contribute to persistent fear, instability, and confusion under a multilayered immigration policy regime.
Recent scholarship theorizes temporalities as an important part of the migration experience, with temporal insecurity being a crucial element of (im)mobility and inequality via the phenomenon of waiting. In this article, we examine how temporalities and experiences of waiting influence health status and access to care, using ethnographic data to articulate how temporalities impact resources and how a doxa of waiting is enacted, placing some groups at heightened risk of illness and pain compared to others. Drawing upon a sample of 100 immigrant families with mixed legal status living in United States-Mexico border communities, we focus on an understudied area in anthropology: oral health concerns. We illuminate the precarious social contexts of these families and illustrate how they navigate a variety of temporally available dental care options. By centering temporalities in our analysis, we show that the quest for care is characterized by waiting, a state that is naturalized for migrant populations who may be deemed less deserving of resources. Waiting produces forms of violence that are incremental and cumulative yet ultimately rendered invisible precisely because of its long duration. A focus on temporalities highlights the unique strengths, risks, and needs of communities, which are key to addressing health equity.
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