Ming Hsu Chen (UC Law, San Francisco), Jennifer M. Chacón (Stanford Law School), and Shannon Gleeson (Cornell University — School of Industrial and Labor Relations) have posted Exclusion by Design: Immigrant Racialization and Temporary Legal Status on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Migrant workers enter the United States on temporary visas more often than on green cards that lead to U.S. citizenship, and the majority come from countries whose emigrants would be classified as non-White in the United States. Even so, immigration scholarship gives short shrift to temporary statuses and treats them as race neutral. This Article contributes to the growing body of critical migration studies by demonstrating how immigration law assigns meaning to the legal status of temporary migrants. We find that temporary legal statuses are designed in ways that unnecessarily foster social exclusion through a process of racialization and hierarchical sorting by skills. Our empirical study of the distinctive experiences of three temporary worker categories deepens existing understandings of exclusion and racial subordination in the United States.
Highly recommended!
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