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This chapter presents three films that deal with homelessness and migration: Qu’ils reposent en révolte (Sylvain George, 2011) about migrants in Calais; Au bord du monde/On the Edge of the World (Claus Drexel, 2014) on homeless people in central Paris; and La Permanence/On Call (Alice Diop, 2016), which depicts a free medical clinic in Bobigny. In all of these films, the protagonists live at the metaphorical edge of society, and some walk other edges as well, between life and death, between physical and mental illness and health. These three directors explore what happens at these edges, far outside the realm of direct experience for most documentary film viewers. They follow characters to physical and geographical edges—national borders, riverbanks, beaches, and roadsides—and invite viewers to tiptoe up to those edges and feel the danger they pose. The films create film spaces, if ephemeral ones, where these rootless individuals do belong, where they can emerge as individuals, and where there is a potential for experiential and ecological connection with the viewer.

This chapter examines two extended life narratives by undocumented subjects: Ramón “Tianguis” Pérez’s memoir Diary of an Undocumented Immigrant and the oral history of an undocumented Nicaraguan immigrant, “Yamileth,” recorded by Diana Walta Hart in Undocumented in L.A. Neither Yamileth nor Pérez sees themselves as a permanent immigrant (illegal or otherwise) in their life stories. Thus, while both texts resist certain strands of dominant discourse about illegal immigrants, they also express a transnational sensibility that exhibits a strong sense of agency about the subjects’ plotting of their own life stories. This, even while perhaps simultaneously confirming negative rhetoric about recent immigrants’ unwillingness to assimilate to “American” culture or be fully incorporated into U.S. society.

This chapter explores the ‘minor’ subjectivity of Sylvain George’s film-work, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor literature and Henri Michaux’s ‘left-handed’ poetics. It claims that George’s unstable camera work, combined with the oscillation between the objectives of documentary observation and the sequences of lyrical expressionism, disrupt the traditional topographer’s position, resulting in a dynamic relation of inclusion. It closes by suggesting that this ‘minor’ mode, marked by its recurrent estrangement from the ‘real,’ is a crucial vehicle for capturing the complexity of the contemporary landscape of informal refugee camps in and around the cities of northern France.

The third chapter proposes a critique of Alcaraz’s first published volume, a compilation of editorial cartoons inspired on diverse aspects of the controversy surrounding Latino immigration, from the questioning of corporate attitudes to the appropriation of language as an excuse for harassment. In them, we can recognize the temperament of an individual willing to take a stance against opportunist politicians and law-enforcement abuse. Alcaraz’s illustrations document the escalation of a confrontation in some parts of the country as immigration and the presence of Latinos become a surrogate way of addressing the need for acceptance and tolerance of greater cultural diversity. The text also chronicles the cartoonist’s predicaments along the process of coming up with a suitable vehicle for his assessments. The chapter shows how, despite being well intentioned, Alcaraz’s responses sometimes do not advance the case for Latino immigration in the most practical manner and thus perpetuate a polarized atmosphere.

This chapter, in conjunction with Chapter 2, provides the overall context for the book. First, this chapter locates undocumented migration within the broader theoretical paradigms that consider economic, structural and migration systems as drivers for international migration as well as the structural and state based factors that result in irregular migration. Secondly, we explore the literature on social capital in the form of networks. These networks can, on the one hand act as a trap while on the other hand as a mechanism for securing some, even if extremely minimal, resources for undocumented migrants and is central to our analysis. Thirdly the literature on the labour market experiences and strategies among undocumented migrants will be examined, alongside that of ethnic enclave employers, including their preferences for certain types of workers who are often from the same ethnic group and perceived to be hard working and compliant. Throughout we will address the main cleavages of gender, class, power and status that frame the analysis in the empirical chapters.

The focus of this chapter on the creation and positioning of undocumented migrants within policy, law and human rights frameworks. We explore the European agreements, international rights’ frameworks and the role of citizenship as a mechanism for inclusion and exclusion and locate some recent developments within the UK immigration and asylum policies within that general framework. The chapter argues that it is states and not migrants that foster undocumented migration, as a product of tightening immigration controls. By focusing on the key instruments which governments have resorted to in destination countries, as a response to migrants and undocumented migration, the chapter demonstrates that none of the legislative measures introduced is positioned to answer the problems they raise in relation to undocumented migration. The measures which EU Member States, in particular have adopted, represent crude responses to a much wider problem of uneven development, poverty in many areas of the world and the attraction to employers of labour that is not in a position to complain and which cannot assert its rights.

The focus of this chapter is on migration journeys and routes into becoming undocumented. The argument is that there is no one experience of these processes. Instead experiences combine with structural barriers and immigration policies, personal circumstances, opportunities and resources, both economic and social. In this chapter we start by exploring migration motives and reasons for coming to the UK among the undocumented migrants interviewed. We then examine the use of agents and smugglers, the journey itself and the different ways in which migrants initially entered the country. The third part of the chapter examines migrants’ routes in and out of different statuses and how and why they found themselves undocumented. Finally, we explore both attempts to regularise status and decisions for not attempting to do this. The chapter shows the ways in which motives, strategies and experiences varied and that there was a country of origin, ethnicity and gender dimension to these variations.

This chapter focuses on the working lives of undocumented migrants. In particular it explores the constant juxtaposition of working lives with irregularity in five main areas: job search and routes into employment; jobs and sectors of employment; terms and conditions of work and the precarious nature of employment; experiences of work within and outside of the ethnic enclave; and workplace relations. For the most part work is insecure, with poor terms and conditions, including long and unsocial hours without overtime payments. Work was mostly for employers or managers from the same ethnic and/or linguistic group in some of the most informal parts of the economy. However, being undocumented does not mean a total absence of agency and the chapter shows how undocumented migrants are able to make incremental improvements to their working lives by adopting particular tactics in terms of skills acquisition, job mobility and even geographical mobility.

This chapter provides insights into the experiences, businesses and business practices of minority ethnic employers from migrant backgrounds. Although we review their routes into business, our main focus is on their employment practices, including the recruitment of workers; the impact of immigration controls, including sanctions on those practices, where relevant, the reasons for employing undocumented migrants and the ways in which ethnicity and perceptions of workers based on stereotypes informed those practices. The chapter argues that motives for employing undocumented migrants are complex and that employers consider the obligations of family, kinship and geography, the sense of political solidarity and their need for trust within the employment relationship. It questions the usefulness of the sanctions regime in relation to employer practices. The chapter shows how some employers held stereotyped views of what constitutes a good worker and which workers were to be trusted. In recruitment a reliance on social networks replicated and cemented existing social relationships, so that labour forces were produced and reproduced around particular social categories, including ethnicity and gender.

Being undocumented has consequences in every sphere of life. This chapter focusses on the ways in which undocumented migrants experience the exclusions of their status and develop strategies for managing these status based exclusions. In earlier chapters we explored the impact of status on employment and social lives and activities, in this chapter we first focus on the impact of being undocumented in relation to access to and use of public services looking in particular at health, welfare benefits and police services. We then examine the ways in which status intersects with other spheres where documents are always or often required, notably housing, participation in educational opportunities, travel, opening a bank account and even to obtain a driving license. The chapter shows how the impact if status varies, affecting people in different ways, within different settings and it results in a range of different responses to contexts and individual circumstances, as well as diversity in lived experiences, including levels of fear, anxiety, trust and disclosure.

This concluding chapter returns to the themes discussed in the book, to capture the essence of what makes undocumented migrants tolerate their lives on the margins and it questions whose interests are served. It reflects on why undocumented migration occurs, what the imperatives are that drive it and what its affects are on migrants themselves, on their networks, on those who employ them and on society more generally. The chapter focusses on four key themes. First, we consider the use, by both undocumented migrants and minority ethnic employers, of resources and networks, taking account of the discussion in Chapters 4-6 on employment and social networks. Having reflected on how individuals survive and at what costs, we then turn to a re-examination of the policy aims and the consequences of migration policies reflecting on Chapters 2, 3 and 7. We consider concepts of risk taking and risk avoidance among undocumented migrants in their economic and social lives, before finally turning to a reflection on the impact of class, gender, language, skills and ethnicity on the lives of those without status.

Drawing from ethnographic and archaeological data collected by The Undocumented Migration Project in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, this chapter investigates the ways in which unauthorized border-crossing is remembered. The memories are posited as heterotopic, that is, as institutional counter-sites with various actors who have competing aims, different experiences, and polarized socio-political positions. Grabowska and Doering-White highlight how identity, landscape, and materiality oscillate while memory works through personal recollection, cultural construction, and analytic interpretation. Grabowska and Doering-White show, for example, how artifacts can recall stories that migrants forget, and how the memories of border-crossers can equally contest the agendas of humanitarians and anti-immigration militias. In so doing, Grabowska and Doering-White seek to add variation to the border-crossing narrative while self-reflexively considering the strength of a mixed methodology.

This chapter discusses the politically and morally contentious issue of whether strict fairness and justice in a rationing system can be accomplished in a democracy like the United States. Fairness dictates that similar cases should be similarly treated, and morally irrelevant facts about people should be exactly that: irrelevant. However, it seems difficult to imagine (for example) that undocumented immigrants would be offered the same benefits under a comprehensive and rationed healthcare system as citizens, due to public opposition. On the other hand, the “better angels of our nature” have occasionally prevailed against apparent dominant opinion, such as in the case of civil rights. However, it is acknowledged that the tyranny of the majority may have to be mollified if that would ensure acceptance of comprehensive healthcare reform.

Anti-immigrant discourses persistently construct images of undocumented immigrants as a disruptive force in almost every aspect of American society. Yet, the extent to which these discourses reflect measurable impacts as opposed to perceived threats is uncertain. This chapter analyzes the representation and perception of undocumented immigrants as a threat to the U.S. healthcare system, and the state of Arizona in particular. Focusing on popular media coverage of anti-immigrant senate proposals regarding healthcare in Arizona, this chapter first analyzes the ways in which arguments in support and against the bills construct undocumented immigrants as disruptive threats to specific domains of U.S. society. Second, this chapter compares national public opinion polls of immigrants’ disruptive threats on the U.S. healthcare system with those of medical professionals in Arizona. These analyses highlight the tenuous relationship between perceptions of disruption and measurable impacts, and how these differences may influence healthcare delivery.

George I. Sánchez was a restrictionist who believed in curbing undocumented immigration. He directed academic research on the immigration issue that resulted in the Saunders-Leonard report, a study that caused a great deal of internal division among Mexican Americans. Like other Mexican American leaders, Sánchez was a mass of contradictions with regard to the issue of undocumented immigrants. He believed that the immigrants themselves were to be pitied and cared for, while those who exploited them for pennies a day were the true villains. Ultimately, unfettered capitalism was the main problem for Sánchez. Also at this time, Sánchez's alimony battle with his first spouse took a surprising turn with devastating repercussions for him in later years.

Within the context of global trade and migration to cities in the 1980s, the department remobilized to expand its discretionary authority to combat the growing number of undocumented migrants. Hoping to maintain the trust of new immigrant populations, officials limited police authority to make arrests based on immigration status. Yet, the LAPD constructed an “alien criminal” category to justify cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and to arrest undocumented immigrants and refugees fleeing South and central America. In the process, the LAPD employed racialized constructions of illegality that criminalized the city’s Latino/a population in the name of protecting the image of Los Angeles as a world city.

This chapter introduces the main ideas, people and preceding history of the deportation regime, Mexican American activism, and outline of the book chapters. It explains what led the small print shop owner Herman Baca, and his mentors Bert Corona and Soledad “Chole” Alatorre, to project the Chicano movement toward immigration issues. The chapter then explores how the development of racial capitalism—from the acquisition of indigenous land, the use of a system of chattel slavery, and recruitment of displace migrant workers—formed the basis for a deportation system of immigration in the U.S. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the chapter themes that will be shared throughout by exploring a brief history of struggle among ethnic Mexican activists in the United States for immigrant rights from the 1930s through the 1980s.