Professor of Law Ming Hsu Chen, University of Colorado, will discuss her new book, Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era (Stanford University Press), as part of Center co-director, and BC Professor of Law Daniel Kanstroom's Immigration Law class.  The presentation is open to the public.

The book describes what it is like for noncitizens to try to integrate into American society during a time when immigration policy is focused on enforcement and exclusion.

Ming Hsu Chen argues that the citizen/alien binary should be reframed as a spectrum of citizenship, a concept that emphasizes continuities between the otherwise distinct experiences of membership and belonging for immigrants seeking to become citizens. The book utilizes interviews with more than one-hundred immigrants of varying legal statuses about their attempts to integrate economically, socially, politically, and legally during a modern era of intense immigration enforcement. Studying the experiences of green card holders, refugees, military service members, temporary workers, international students, and undocumented immigrants uncovers the common plight that underlies their distinctions: limited legal status breeds a sense of citizenship insecurity for all immigrants that inhibits their full integration into society. Bringing together theories of citizenship with empirical data on integration and analysis of contemporary policy, Chen builds a case that formal citizenship status matters more than ever during times of enforcement and argues for constructing pathways to citizenship that enhance both formal and substantive equality of immigrants.

Link to more about the book.

RSVP to tinyurl.com/Sept12Chen or at the red "Register" button at the event listing and a Zoom link will be sent out before the event.