ABSTRACT

In 2012, President Obama deferred the deportation of qualified undocumented youth with his policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals forever changing the lives of the approximately five million DREAMers currently in the United States. Formerly illegal, a generation of Latino youth have begun to build new lives based on their newfound legitimacy. In this book, the first to examine the lives of DREAMers in the wake of Obama s deferred action policy, the authors relay the real-life stories of more than 100 DREAMers from four states. They assess the life circumstances in which undocumented Latino youth find themselves, the racializing effects generated by current immigration public discourse, and the permanent impact of this policy environment on DREAMers in America."

chapter |26 pages

Introduction

“This Is the Most Important Day of My Life!”

chapter |22 pages

“We Asked for Workers, but Human Beings Came”

History and Economic Argument for the DREAM Act

chapter |29 pages

Flying under the Radar

The Racialization of Immigration and the DREAMers

chapter |29 pages

Living in Limbo

Neither Here nor There and the Concept of Citizenship

chapter |18 pages

Conclusion

Dreaming of Justice