ILLEGALIZED: Rafael Martinez on Undocumented Youth Movements

Transcript of interview on Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon

Summary

Rafael A. Martinez discusses the lived experiences of undocumented youth in America. He’s Assistant Professor of Southwest Borderlands at Arizona State University and author of Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States.

Martinez details how activism and organizing led to gains such as in-state tuition and DACA, but also the precariousness of these advancements under changing political climates.

Martinez emphasizes the resilience and creativity of undocumented communities in navigating systemic challenges, while acknowledging the significant mental and physical health consequences of living under constant threat of deportation.

His experiences underscore the systemic nature of immigration issues and the interconnectedness of undocumented immigrants’ lives with the broader U.S. society. The interview concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to engage with local organizations supporting immigrant rights.

“Immigration isn’t a broken system; it’s working as designed—to exploit and marginalize immigrant communities.” — Rafael Martinez

Transcript

Rafael Martinez, welcome to Writer's Voice.

Thank you for having me, Francesca.

So, you were born in Mexico, and you came to the United States as a very young child with your parents, so you spent your youth undocumented. You say that that early experience was determined by what you call your illegality. What impact did that illegality have on your life until really it changed when you went to college?

You know, I think oftentimes when people talk about illegality, both in academic, scholarly terms, but just in general in the public sphere, people often think about the big picture items, which are important, the borderlands, detention, deportation, those big things.

But in the book, I talk about illegality as something that happens in everyday actions for undocumented immigrants in the United States, and the decision-making process that undocumented immigrants have to make on a daily basis, but specifically for youth and children growing up undocumented, as I did myself for practically half of my life.

As you come of age, you see your friends getting their driver's license. You see them benefiting from the material culture that the United States often promises our youth, getting all of these different trips, all of these different actions.

Growing up undocumented, you're limited. You're limited in terms of mobility. When I grew up in the state of California, California at that time didn't have driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, so I was not able to receive a driver's license when all of my friends were getting their driver's license.

That restricted me from enjoying all the things that youth enjoy, going to the movies, going out on dates, hanging out with friends. All of those different actions are limiting.

Now when it came time to going to college, it impacted education as well because many people were going away to college to different states, different universities, and I might have been a competitive student, but my reality was I'm going to go to a university that's A, affordable, and B, that's closest to my house because, again, I can't even drive to my university.

And so all of those things are impacted, and I didn't, I wouldn't get all of these benefits until I was much older, already in my late 20s.

And healthcare, you know, all of those different things that a lot of U.S. citizens, of course, take for granted or are inherited privileges, if you will, those are the ways that I talked about illegality is having to make those everyday actions on how undocumented immigrants navigate everyday decision-making process.

You went to college, and was in-state tuition free when you began, or did that change while you were there? I'm talking about undergrad.

Yeah, for my undergrad, I received in-state tuition. And you know, in California at the time, we had what was known as AB 540. And that granted undocumented students in-state tuition.

Now of course, that had come from a long period of activism and organizing in California and really around the United States as well, stemming back all the way from the 1980s, and really the 90s where things intensified.

And then states like Texas, believe it or not, Texas was the first state to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students. And then California would follow, New Mexico, and quite a bit of states now that offer in-state tuition.

Of course, quite a bit of them that have also gone the opposite direction and not granted in-state tuition. California, for example, now also has state aid for undocumented students, as does New Mexico and many other states around the nation.

But at that time, yes, I qualified for in-state tuition, but did not receive state aid, yet that came much later after some more organizing in the early 2000s. And basically, it would be my parents and I that paid for tuition out-of-pocket.

And organizing is a key factor in your book, Illegalized Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States. It must be dismaying to see so much backsliding, even in those states, I mean, Texas, of course. And we'll talk more about this later, but just what were some of the privileges that you enjoyed that are now being lost?

Well, you know, I think one of the important things that I talk about in the book is that oftentimes in the United States, even in social movements, in spaces of organizing, there's this illusion that there's a starting place, and then there's going to be an ending place, and things are going to run linear.

Like you start at a place and things are going to naturally get better, and in some ways they oftentimes do, but that really finish line becomes blurry because power, you know, in this case governmental power, institutional power, adapts to, you know, resistance or organizing efforts, and we saw that happening within the broader immigrant rights movement and certainly undocumented youth social movements, where there was this intensified period of the 2000s, which is the primary period that I write about in telling the history of how undocumented youth became the face of the broader immigrant rights movement and changed the way that we talked about immigrant rights.

In that period of time we saw in-state tuition, as I mentioned, in many states, you know, change, the discourse change in those states, driver's license beginning to be offered in many places.

And then, of course, the biggest, you know, win, if you will, in some ways for undocumented youth was the passing of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, under President Obama's administration, where in June of 2012, under an executive action, he granted DACA, which allowed undocumented youth to gain a work permit and, you know, lack of fear of deportation or protection from deportation.

And that was a permit that would be renewed every two years by undocumented youth.

And again, that wasn't something that was given, that was something that was granted based on all the organizing, the efforts, the push by undocumented youth.

But unfortunately, you know, over time, you know, we've gone from discussions about immigration reform, about supporting undocumented youth in our broader immigrant rights population, to now basically, you know, the idea of immigration reforms now sounds so foreign in political terms.

And we see that DACA is now in a vulnerable position, where under the 45th President's administration, it was pushed to legality, and now it's in the court systems, which with him coming back as 47th President, we see DACA, you know, in a very precarious state and might not be making it this next four years.

And you are also a Dreamer. That changed your life when you were in graduate school, as I recollect. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yes. As I mentioned, my undergrad experience was completely undocumented.

And you know, that was a challenging experience that lasted eight years, essentially, because at that time, there was no point in graduating. There was no next step, no career option.

And really graduate school seemed like a safe bet or a sanctuary, in the sense of thinking about, okay, well, I'll just prolong my education.

And of course, I was passionate about reading and writing, as I would continue to do in graduate school. And that's really what led me to my master's and PhD.

And then, once I started my master's program in 2012, that's when DACA passed. And that completely changed the game. That gave me access to a work permit, that gave me access to protection from deportation.

And then for the first time, reaching 27 years old, I had a driver's license in the state of New Mexico. And then I also had healthcare for the first time in my life in general.

And so, you know, my experience from undergrad to graduate school, and really the adult part of my life, now as a professor, has been completely, you know, different from my youth, essentially.

And is that threatened, if something happens to DACA?

Certainly, yes. If DACA was to go away the day of tomorrow, of course, not only my job, but at the height of DACA, we had 800,000 undocumented youth participate or benefit from DACA.

Currently, the program has about 500,000 youth.

A lot of the reason for people not subscribing or continuing with the program was under the 45th President's Administration. Of course, not only was the threat they would end DACA, but also that the collection of data from DACA would lead to basically mass deportations. Many people would not renew their DACA, did not renew their DACA, and so we're currently at about 500,000 undocumented youth.

I say that number because that's in contrast to the larger 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States today.

Yes, DACA is very important. It has allowed people like myself and other folks to pursue a career, to give back to this country, to be contributing members of society in very key places, me and education.

Many people, as we saw during the years of the pandemic, contributing in the realm of being essential workers during a country in the world's hard time during COVID, and so we see that the impact of DACA would be massive in terms of millions of dollars that would be cut in contributing by DACA recipients in this country.

You're saying that people actually dropped out of the DACA system because they feared that it was going to go away and then they would be more vulnerable. It sounds like there, and you say in your book, that there are actually some advantages that come with being undocumented.

Well, yes.

You know, I think that the advantages is, you know, and of course, as we face this threat of DACA being rescinded, as we face, you know, possible new political challenges by the new administration coming in, you know, people are resourceful.

Immigrant communities are resilient. And that resilience has to bring creativity, it has to bring new ways of living, new ways of adapting to a system.

And so, many scholars, including myself and my book, we write about this idea of how undocumented youth and how undocumented immigrants can be creative in the realm of challenges. And this is not new.

Of course, we see this in many historical periods where there's repression, there's ways of adaptation.

But the other thing that we should say, or caution, I should say, is that, you know, resilience is a double-edged sword.

So there's resilience and creativity and all the great things that come from this status and this marginalization.

But also, there's still marginalization, meaning that there's still trauma, there's still PTSD, there's still a lot of mental health issues and health issues that undocumented immigrants carry.

Because living in that precarious state for so many years, for so long of years, is something that is quite stressful.

And that stress eventually leads to chronic health issues and mental health issues.

So there's the positives, of course, and then also the challenges.

And Rafael Martinez, the kind of trauma that you described, I mean, even just on the level of always having to watch your back, be careful about not getting into situations where your undocumented status could come to light. That is incredibly stressful.

But now, as you chronicle in Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States, coming out publicly as undocumented is one of these creative adaptations, I guess you could say, to me, who watched it when it was going on, it seemed an incredible act of courage.

So talk about how these movements of undocumented youth began and evolved, and this whole policy of going public, how people do that, I mean, not just on the most basic level. How do they do that, and yet still are able to maintain their activism?

One of the things that I point to in the book is the fact that most of the organizers and leaders in undocumented youth social movements that I write about were, of course, trained for many years and worked with many organizations that stem from the Civil Rights Movement and other justice-based movements, civil disobedience tactics and strategies.

And so things like coming out of the shadows, which means undocumented youth very in public ways, coming out publicly and denouncing their undocumented status, comes, for example, from the coming out of the closet that the queer or LGBTQ rights movement of the 60s, 70s organized to make space, to create space, right?

If people know that you're undocumented, it creates, you know, a space or an opportunity for other folks to be seen, to be heard, and to know that there's other folks going through similar experiences, but also it lets people know that in numbers, there's strength.

And I remember when I started watching these videos and these actions online, mostly on social media as MySpace, Facebook, and all of these social media were coming to fruition in the early 2000s, for me, myself, you know, many of us grew up saying, don't share your status.

You might get detained. You might get deported. Don't say anything to anybody.

And so when I'm watching these videos, it begs the question internally within our own community to say, should I be able, should I be doing these similar things to be able to open up that space, if it's publicly or even privately for other folks within my university, within my church group, within my like different groups, right, different settings for people to feel seen, to be heard, and to be acting.

And so that was one thing that changed the game or flipped the script for undocumented youth that was different from earlier immigrant rights movement, where it was mostly people advocating on behalf of immigrants.

The way that youth changed the way that the undocumented youth movement went forward was that no, we're going to control our own narrative and we're going to put our own messaging out there and we're going to develop our own organizations.

Now by the time that we reached 2010, you know, the cultural capital, the social fabric of the United States, undocumented youth became so seen, so heard, and so favorable by the general U.S. public that detaining and deporting these activists, even when they pushed the boundaries, even when they came out in very public ways or they conducted civil disobedience actions that were very public, would have been seen very unfavorable by the U.S. public.

And that alone was also a tactic that undocumented youth learned from earlier periods.

You know, one of the things I talk about in chapter one is the sanctuary movement, a new sanctuary movement, the sanctuary movement, of course, standing from the 1980s with refugees in asylum cases coming to the United States.

But the sanctuary movement began not with immigrants, but it originally stemmed from the Vietnam era, where conscientious objectors from the Vietnam War era were basically rejecting their draft cases, and they started taking sanctuary inside of churches.

And initially, the U.S. government was basically pulling these individuals out of churches, and the public outcry became so big that the U.S. government stopped doing that as a practice of, like, drafting people in these public ways.

And so later on, when the sanctuary movement began, people began to adopt these strategies and saying, this is going to be seen very unfavorable by the U.S. public.

And so immigrant rights continued some of these same actions.

And by the time that we get to 2010 with undocumented youth, they're seen so favorable by the U.S. public that they exchanged that cultural capital to really serve as a protection layer where they're now pushing the boundaries of organizing and organizing very publicly and in civil disobedience ways because they know they're more likely not going to get detained and deported.

And in fact, most of the cases that I write about or leaders that I write about in the book, most of those undocumented youth don't get detained and deported.

Some of those leaders that you write about were Jonathan Perez and Isaac Barrera.

They founded the Immigrant Youth Coalition, and one of their actions early on was walking into a border patrol office in order to get detained.

Tell us about that incident. What happened? Why did they do that? And then tell us about the work of that coalition.

Well, in 2011, when Jonathan and Isaac decided to take on this action, they realized, you know, our undocumented immigrant communities, we knew firsthand the violence that was happening inside of detention centers.

And we knew it because, of course, unfortunately, our loved ones and people in our communities were suffering from this violence when they were detained inside of detention centers.

But, of course, detention centers for people or the public who might not be aware of detention centers are kind of situated in places that are out of sight and out of mind, really hard places to get to, even for lawyers who have cases or who have clients there.

And so it was really hard to document that violence and human rights violations that were happening inside of detention centers.

And it took very much this courageous act or this way of pushing the boundaries of organizing for these folks to decide, okay, we're going to risk our own deportation, we're going to get detained, we're going to go ahead and perform this and get detained so that we could infiltrate the detention center.

That's the way that we could get access to the detention center. So they did.

And of course, it was all a coordinated effort, meaning that everything was strategized. There had been multiple organizations involved.

You mentioned the IYC, but there was also NIA, the National Immigrant Youth Alliance. That was a network, a national network of leaders who were intending to do these type of disruptive civil disobedient actions that were pushing the boundaries, along with allied lawyers who would work their cases, of course, once they were inside of detention.

And so once they were placed inside of the detention center, they started interviewing, they started talking to people inside of detention.

And the two important things that they found that they would later call activists on the outside and lawyers at the outside would be basically audio recording those conversations so that they could document or share those experiences that they were finding inside with the public outside and disseminating those through social media, through media networks.

And so this went what we would call today viral, where people were like catching onto this actions that were happening.

The two things that they found inside of the detention center, one was that the administration at that point was telling us that we are only deporting high criminals or high profile cases. We're not pursuing low infractions.

And in fact, the majority of the people that they were finding inside of that detention center were low infraction offenders, right?

Like things like people crossing the sidewalk or jaywalking, things like people running a red light or something like that.

And then the second thing they were finding was that it was very common experience for many of those folks to have experienced a form of violence, a form of mental health or health negligence inside of detention.

And so, you know, they would spend, you know, some time inside of that detention center reporting out to the outside world what was happening in.

And I don't want to spoil it for your audience. I want them to read the chapter. But basically what I will say is that to the U.S. government, these two activists that are infiltrating the detention center become a bigger threat inside of the detention center than outside of that detention center because they are basically exposing the U.S. government in showcasing what's really happening inside of the detention center.

And it begs the question, and really why I named the book Illegalized, is it shows how undocumented bodies or immigrants are rendered illegal in places like detention centers.

But it begs the question to be asked, is it these undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. to make a better life who are committing illegal actions, or is it the U.S. government who's basically going through this energy and effort to document undocumented immigrants as criminals, and then putting them through these violent patterns inside of the detention center, who is the illegal one for committing these human rights violations?

Yes, and Rafael Martinez, you mentioned that it was, maybe this was in the Obama administration, anyway, it was claimed that only the worst of the worst were being deported. And of course, that was shown not to be true, as you just said.

Talk a little bit about the through line between, you know, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, the Biden administration, before we talk about what might be the same or different in the Trump administration.

That's a really great question, because I think one of the evolutions of undocumented youth social movements through those administrations that you name and mention, you know, initially people or undocumented youth were still willing to, in some ways, work with the system, meaning support certain politicians, and many times even publicly advocating or campaigning with them to say, you know, if we put this person in an office, the outcome might be more favorable. And in some cases, that was generally true.

However, undocumented youth, over the evolution of the 2000s and really going into the present moment, we have come to realize that the issue is not always just who's in office.

The issue is the immigration control system that is designed, you know, people say the immigration system is broken. Many of us would argue that it's not broken. Unfortunately, it's performing what it was meant to do, which it's meant to be a violent system. It's meant to produce money or capital, right?

Because let's not forget that, you know, these detention centers are private detention centers and they're for profit. And so at the end of the day, whoever is in office, they have a contract with these private detention centers that tells them, you need to fill these beds in order for us to continue renewing these contracts.

So no matter who's in office, that cycle needs to continue, that machinery needs to continue. And the oversight that happens is that no matter who's in office, these are private detention centers.

So when lawyers or community members go to complain about the system, in reality, that's how the U.S. government washes their hands by saying, well, it's not the U.S. government committing these actions, it's these privately run detention centers and you need to complain with them, right?

So there's so much oversight that happens.

And so the big difference is that we saw, for example, right now in the transition between the Biden administration going into the 47th President's administration, that there's things that the Biden administration could be taking to potentially reduce the potential harm that could be done in the next administration.

And we see the actual, the opposite happening, where basically the opportunities for ramping up detentions and deportations as an immigration system have continued and those numbers just continue to stay steadily high across those administrations.

And so I think that oftentimes we think of this as an administration issue or like a president being in power, but it's really a systems issue because while the immigration system continues with these violent oversights, these, you know, different rules and regulations, those oversights are going to continue to happen no matter who's in office.

So as you point out, this is systemic, and I want to step outside the frame that we seem to have been in since 9-11, which is that we have to control our borders.

I mean, even though, you know, 9-11 happened with a whole bunch of people from Saudi Arabia that we have never gone after, the U.S. has always seen itself as a country of immigrants.

Our economy completely depends on the labor of immigrants, whether that's in food or, as you pointed out, essential workers. I mean, we saw that. Why do we need to control our borders? Why can't people just come across with, of course, a certain, we don't want to have people who are, you know, as Kamala Harris talked about, the drug cartels maybe coming in. But why do we go from an assumption that we have to keep people out, when we actually need people to come in?

Yes, that's, that's a great question. And I think that's a question that most US Americans need to reflect on.

I'll give you two quick, you know, ideas or two quick historical reference points that I think I mentioned in the book, but also many scholars would agree on.

And the first one is that if you go back to the 1980s, we tend to think of this military militarization of the border as something that has gone on for generations and many years.

In fact, you know, it's a very recent, you know, development.

But really, it wasn't until the 90s, or the late 1980s, the 90s, and the 2000s, that we see this high militarization of the border that we have here.

And that's significant because up to the 80s, 70s, and 60s, people would generally still be able to walk or come across those borders with particular ease, right?

And the idea that was sold to the Americans was that we need to protect and militarize these borders, because there's drugs, there's guns, there's terrorists, there's all these things happening across the borders.

But in fact, really, what was happening is people would come to the United States and work for X amount of years, make enough money to send back home.

And most of those times, by the time those folks, you know, had enough money to start back in their home countries, many of them would return, you know, and successfully return back to their home countries.

But when the 90s, the militarization of the border began or really ramped up, that's when we saw, you know, people being landlocked, people having to make the decision, if we're going to migrate to the US, it's to stay there.

And we see this from the last immigration reform, which was which was in 1986.

We haven't had one since then.

There was only about 3 million to 4 million undocumented immigrants in the US at that time.

Now we fast forward and we're at 11 million.

Why?

Because people are landlocked.

If they migrate to the US, they have to stay here.

They can't go back to their home countries for the most part.

So that's an important fact for people to realize that that's what that's what you're giving up by militarizing the border and keep keeping people locked in.

The second thing that happens is that, again, detention became a big item, a big item of capital for the United States.

I mean, you're talking about in the millions, if not going into billions now of revenue that the US government, like any military contract or any of those type of contracts, it has these big contracts.

And you know, many scholars, my book talks a little bit about return migration or undocumented youth who have been detained and deported back to their home countries.

And what we see with return migrants to Latin America to Mexico is that the majority of those folks speak English.

So where are they working once they go back to their home countries? They're working for American companies. Right. And so the system's still working even then.

And then with new immigrants coming and being long landlocked in the United States and continue to be undocumented for many generations, many years, what ends up happening is you maintain a revolving door that guarantees low wage workers for basically decades. And that's that's what we see.

Americans don't want to see undocumented immigrants in their community, but they sure enjoy the service that they provide, because otherwise most industries in this country would fall apart.

And if we are talking about mass deportation, people are going to come to reckon with that reality pretty quickly if that actually goes through.

I want to ask you, what is the most important thing that people like myself or listeners listening to this program, who are American citizens, can do to support their neighbors who could be in such dire danger?

Well, you know, that's a great question. And I would say that, as my book shows, and in my work documents, is that people, undocumented immigrants, but certainly allies like yourself and your listeners, should get involved.

And what that means is there's tons of local organizations that do work for immigrant rights, that work with our immigrant-led.

And so right now, with this challenge of a new administration coming in, people should get involved with these organizations.

Those organizations will tell folks what the needs are, right, around labor issues, around detention and deportation defenses.

Most of these organizations have already built detention and deportation defense systems.

There's going to be a high need for legal accompanying to possible court cases and things of this situation.

A lot of our youth are going through very hard mental health issues.

People who have access to some of these resources, you know, like our lawyers, many times they're working for pro bono for these communities, you know, for mental health and health care providers to be able to support our undocumented immigrants in these important ways, our educators to be compassionate, because, yes, undocumented immigrants could be impacted.

But one of the important facts that I'll remind your listeners as well is that there's an expected about 18 million U.S. children living with undocumented parents.

So whatever might happen the day of tomorrow not only impacts our undocumented immigrant community, but it certainly impacts our U.S. citizens, including our U.S. born children who have parents or family members who might be impacted by whatever actions might be taken.

So there's different ways, but the most important thing that I'll tell your listeners is to get involved with their local organizations.

And, you know, a lot of these folks will tell them you could get involved in these different ways and support our undocumented immigrants in these different ways as well.

Well, Rafael Martinez, I wish we could spend more time on this wonderful book, Illegalized Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States, but you've already given us much to think about and to act on. And I want to thank you so much for talking with us here.

Thank you. I enjoyed our conversation.