http://faculty.oxy.edu/ron/msi/03/07232003.htm

Beginning of Colloquium Announcements

1. Lecture Notes available on the web
2. First Version of paper #3 due WED 9am; Final Version Fri Noon

OUTLINE:

I.                    Brief Overview of U.S. immigration law

II.                 U.S. immigration law 1790-2000 / census data

III.               dual citizenship

IV.      borders/hybridity

Citizenship by birth (INA § 301, 8 USC § 1401)

• jus soli ("right of the soil"), under which citizenship results from being born in the US, and
• jus sanguinis ("right of the blood"), under which citizenship results from having an American parent or parents.

Each of these principles is subject to certain restrictions. For example, children born in the US to foreign diplomats are not US citizens. Also, children born abroad to parents who have US citizenship but have never lived in the US are not US citizens (this rule being designed to prevent the proliferation of endless generations of foreign-born and -raised "Americans").

RANDOM VOCAB

coverture: upon marriage a woman cedes her legal individuality to her husband.

Immigration Definitions

Adjustment of Status

The procedure which changes (adjusts) a non-immigrant visa status to permanent resident status while in the US. Example: a woman enters the US as a visitor then later while in the US, marries a US citizen. She can apply for an Adjustment of Status from visitor to permanent resident without leaving the US.

Cancellation of Removal

An order of an Immigration Judge which cancels a Removal Proceeding and allows the applicant to become a permanent resident. The applicant must have been in the US at least ten years, must be a person of good moral character, and must prove that being expelled would cause "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to the applicant's US citizen or Legal Resident spouse, parent, or child (not to the alien himself). It is very difficult to have this type of application approved. Since it can only be requested during a Removal Proceeding, a very strong case should exist before applying since failure could result in the applicant being expelled from the US. (Formerly called Suspension of Deportation.)

Deportation

A proceeding (hearing) to determine if a person should be expelled from the US under the provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act and, the carrying out of an order of expulsion. Under recent law changes, Deportation Proceedings are now called Removal Proceedings.

Exclusion

A proceeding (hearing) to determine if a person should be barred from entering the US. under the provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. Under recent law changes, Exclusion proceedings are now called Removal Proceedings.

Green Card

The informal name for the card issued as proof of registry as a legal permanent resident. It is officially BCIS Form I-551. An earlier version of the card was green in color

Naturalization

The act of making a person a citizen who was not born with that status. An application for citizenship is an application for Naturalization.

Non-Immigrant

A person coming to the US for a limited period of time who intends to return to another country after the stay in the US ends. Also, a class or type of visa issued for a non-immigrant purpose such as visitor, student, diplomat, and others.

Permanent Resident

Haney Lopez “Racial Restrictions in the Law of Citizenship”

Dred Scott (1845) What was it? USSC decision which basically legalized the concept that “a Black person has no rights a White man is required to accept.”

13^th Amendment (1865) Abolished slavery.
14^th Amendment (1868) equal protection of the laws.
15^th Amendment (1870) Black men have the right to vote.

3 main streams of immigration (family, employment, asylum)

Go to page 45 and look at the text of the operative immigration law in 1946.
Consider how changes in immigration law are reflected in the census data over time.

Anzaldua “La conciencia de la mestiza”/mestiza consciousness

Consider the beginning of the piece:

“Jose Vascocelos, Mexican philosopher, envisaged una raza mestiza, una mezcla de razas afines, una raza de color—la primera raza sintesis del globo. He called it a cosmic race, la raza cosmica, a fifth race embracing the four major races of the world. Opposite to the theory of the pure Aryan, and to the policy of racial purity that white America practices, his theory is one of inclusivity. At the confluence of two or more genetic streams, with chromosomes constantly “crossing over,” this mixture of races, rather than resulting in an inferior being, provides hybrid progeny, a mutable, more malleable species with a rich gene pool. From this racial, ideological, cultural and biological cross-pollinization, an “alien” consciousness is presently in the making—a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands. (77)