US-Mexico Family Separation

Maria Ruiz-Martinez

2019 Tinker Project

This project examines the gap between a broad consensus that family life and family unity are important “human rights” and the way that state policies that purportedly offer “family reunification” often create family separation in practice. Specifically, I historicize the United States’ process of enforcing migration law with Mexican immigrants, with special attention under the Trump Era, examining how those processes lead to complex, multiple forms of discrimination and criminalization of transnational families. During my field research in Guanajuato, Mexico, I collected the testimonios of seven parents (five mothers and two fathers) to understand the impact of family separation in their lives. All of the parents I interviewed were over 65 years of age. Most had not seen their child/ren in over a decade. One parent indicated she had not seen her two sons in 26 years. During the interviews, the parents mentioned that the Instituto Estatal del Migrante in Guanajuato is sponsoring a new visa program for senior citizens (over 60 years of age) who have not seen their children residing in the United States in over twenty years, and will support senior citizens in obtaining a visa to see their children. This research project has served as a pilot study to build relationships with parents. Future research will examine the impacts of state-sponsored family reunification programs like the one with the Instituto Estatal del Migrante on the educational trajectories of binational children. 

In this project, I seek to disrupt frameworks of citizenship and recognition to challenge the political subjectivities formed in the context of separation and reunification processes for Mexican transnational families in the United States. In disrupting frameworks of citizenship, I problematize ideas of nation-formation and the construction of illegality within a “globalized” world. A special emphasis on the erasure of indigeneity for Mexican transnationals provides a nuanced understanding of how globalization not only displaces people from their land, but also renders increasing numbers of people disposable. Calling upon decolonial frameworks, this exploration counters Eurocentric notions of recognition and alienation to highlight new norms forming around “family unity.”