My thesis analyzes the role of narratives in the consolidation of a Dreamer identity and movement for undocumented youth. The Dream movement, which initially pushed for the DREAM Act, a bill that would grant undocumented youth a pathway to residency and citizenship, has evolved into a collective effort to protect and fight for rights-enabling legislation for the entire undocumented population. This investigation uses narratives to promote an understanding of the Dream movement, taking into account a long-standing strategy of Dreamers: Stories of self lead to a collective story of us that celebrates individual experiences of a common struggle to belong in spite of a lack of papers. This story of us, in turn, leads to a story of now, a narrative of mobilization and advocacy that speaks to Dreamers’ public quest for legal recognition. The articulation of narratives allows for a sense of belonging among Dreamers who, because they are not conferred citizenship, have struggled to find acceptance and recognition as members of the United States. In spite of not having citizenship, Dreamers have been conferred benefits, such as the right to a free K-12 public school education under the 1982 Supreme Court Plyler v. Doe decision and the right to work and remain in the country for a renewable two years under President Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) directive. These benefits, utilized by Dreamers to show that they are important members of the national polity, are important elements of their narrative. By adopting a Dreamer identity, undocumented youth have realized that lack of papers is not an impediment to civic and political engagement, even if they are not given the right to vote. Dreamers, in mobilizing and advocating, exercise rights such as the ability to testify and lobby that oftentimes the average citizen does not utilize. By becoming so engaged, undocumented youth have made an important claim to citizenship that has given them a newfound visibility and recognition as rights- bearing individuals. / text

Recently, Christopher Heath Wellman has proposed an innovative argument that appears to resolve, at least with respect to immigration, the tension between democratic autonomy (i.e. a people's right to self-determination) and human rights (i.e. respect for individual freedom and universal equality). Wellman argues, from a traditionally liberal point of view, that a legitimate state (i.e. a state that respects human rights) is entitled to self-determination and that part of the definition of being self-determined is having the presumptive right to unilaterally control immigration. In other words, Wellman claims that a state's unilateral right to control immigration can be made compatible with liberal commitments to individual freedom and universal equality. I aim to raise a novel objection against Wellman's argument, which I hope will also challenge philosophers to think differently about the immigration issue as a whole. My position is that even if Wellman's conclusion is correct, that a state's right to self-determination can be made compatible with human rights, the presumptive right that this generates for a legitimate state to unilaterally control immigration is, at best, limited only to admission and exclusion policies (i.e. to questions about who can be let in and who can be kept out). Wellman's conclusion, however, does not hold for strategies of immigration enforcement and expulsion (i.e. to the questions about how these policies may be enforced or what sort of deportation procedures a state is justified in using). And, in fact, I argue that under Wellman's account, a legitimate state would be restricted in deploying certain strategies of immigration enforcement and expulsion. My conclusion is that with respect to immigration enforcement and expulsion strategies, the presumptive right is on the side of the immigrant and not the state. This means that if a legitimate state wishes to control immigration, it is the state who holds the burden of proof to show that not only its immigration policies but also its enforcement and expulsion strategies do not violate prior commitments to individual liberty and universal equality. This, I contend, provides a moral and political baseline justification for immigrant rights, which I refer to as a minimalist defense of immigrant rights.

abstract: Nearly 11 million immigrants in the United States, three-quarters of which are Latino, lack legal authorization to live and work in the country; nonetheless, the majority of these individuals have resided in the U.S. for a decade or more and have profound social, emotional, cultural, and economic ties to the country (Passel & Cohn, 2018). Despite being deeply embedded in their communities, the dominant policy response involves increased immigration enforcement and advancing a hostile socio-political context (Gulasekaram & Ramakishnan, 2015). This policy approach comes at a great cost to immigrant and Latino communities throughout the U.S. and is largely ineffective. Accordingly, many advocates and stakeholders, including the National Association of Social Workers (2017), argue for policies that integrate “unauthorized permanent residents” (Martínez, Slack, & Martínez- Schuldt, 2018). The primary purpose of this study was to understand strategies that can be leveraged to build support for integrationist policymaking. Among a sample of U.S.-born white college students (n=708), intensive, community, and college contact with Latino immigrants and people of color were assessed; the relationships between intergroup contact and support for integrationist policymaking were examined. To better understand the contact-policy attitudes relationship, the deprovincialization hypothesis of the intergroup contact theory (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011) and the Latino threat narrative (Chavez, 2013) were merged and tested as a serial pathway by which contact and policy attitudes may be related. Findings revealed intensive and community contact with Latino immigrants and people of color related to more support for integrationist legislation. In most cases, these effects were direct as well as indirect through the ethnocentrismthreat attitudes pathway. Ethnocentrism fully accounted for the relationships between intensive and community intergroup contact and threat attitudes. These findings have several implications for intervention. First, in the long-term struggle for immigrant integration, intergroup interaction between whites and people of color should be promoted, and the importance of casual intergroup contact should not be dismissed. Interventions that reduce social segregation are needed, as well as efforts to effectively harness the ethnic-racial diversity that presently exists. Cross-group exposure interventions that aim to overcome ethnocentric tendencies should be implemented. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Work 2019

Through fifty-three in-depth interviews with activists, community members, immigrants, students, and allies, this dissertation research explores the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition (AIRC), a nonprofit immigrant rights organization in Austin, Texas that formed as a response to the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) in the spring of 2006. Three layers of questions guide this research: (1) How did AIRC emerge from the established organizations and activist networks in Austin, Texas? (2) What did AIRC do after the 2006 marches and what is its relationship with organizations in Austin? (3) What are the different ways AIRC has attempted to mobilize Latino(a) and pro-immigrant activism? My dissertation demonstrates that the 2006 mobilizations in Austin, Texas were part of a concerted effort by non-profit organizations, grassroots groups, activists, allies, and college and high school students. Amongst these many active participants, Latinas took a lead. The prominence of the work of similar coalitions throughout the U.S. during La Primavera Latina of 2006 and the lack of prominent male leadership suggests that across the nation, as in Austin, a new type of organizational lead is emerging in the Immigrant Rights Movement (Ramírez Perales-Ramos, Arellano 2010). The 2006 mobilizations reveal a different type of leadership, not an absence of one. In Austin, Latinas took on various leadership roles to move the AIRC forward during and beyond the 2006 marches. This dissertation explores the significance of new leadership, a process approach to leadership which I term “doing leadership.” The four processes of doing leadership embody shared leadership, leadership that serves the community, leadership that leads by obeying, and leadership unfolds behind the scenes. / text

Over the last several decades, economic and cultural shifts in the United States have created an increasing demand for domestic labor, and data shows that these jobs have largely been filled by women of color, many of whom are immigrants who may or may not have documented legal status. Despite the growing importance of this industry, domestic workers have historically and intentionally been excluded from most federal and state labor rights and regulation, which has resulted in substandard working conditions, exploitation, and abuse for workers in this industry. This research traces the gendered and racialized legislative exclusion, and analyzes recent state efforts to enact policies extending labor rights to domestic workers. It concludes with recommendations for the role of advocacy in pushing for legislative change, and for bridging the gap between policy and enforcement.

<p>Immigrants have limited opportunities for political engagement in the United States without fear of police profiling and deportation. Leaders in the U.S. immigrant rights movement must find ways of encouraging participation in local immigrant rights activism efforts despite the hostile political climate against immigrants in the United States. In the U.S. immigrant rights movement, local participation in community-based immigrant rights organizations (CBIROs) is an important part of sustaining immigrant rights efforts. This dissertation examines how leaders’ interactions with members influence the likelihood that members will continue to participate in CBIROs. I draw on 29 in-depth interviews with both members and leaders in the Muslim-American Rights Alliance (MARA), a CBIRO in the Midwest. MARA’s leaders use authority signals, inclusion practices, and legitimacy tactics to address the dilemmas associated with sustaining local member participation in the U.S. immigrant rights movement. MARA’s leaders use supportive and inspirational authority signals to maintain the charismatic authority of MARA’s Executive Director. MARA’s leaders use political education and decision-making inclusion practices to counteract the consequences of oligarchy within MARA. MARA’s leaders use professional and street legitimacy tactics to establish the organization’s legitimacy within the local immigrant rights community. The findings from this dissertation allow for new insights into how leadership in CBIROs influences sustained participation in local immigrant rights activism.<br></p> <p> </p>

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