ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses the highly contentious issue of the Trump administration's treatment of undocumented immigrant youth. Of all the controversial policies to emanate from this regime – and there are many – perhaps few captivated the public imagination as much as images of detained children locked in cages and young children separated from their parents. The chapter focuses on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program initiated by the Obama administration, which offered roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants a temporary quasi-legal status. The authors highlight differing state responses to Trump's immigration policy, which create a geography of precarity for these young people. These patterns of inclusion and exclusion point to the profound spatiality embedded within the administration's actions.