Life in the Time of Trump: On the Total and Complete Legal Vulnerability of the Undocumented
Jill Family
Nathalie Martin
In this piece on Jotwell, Jill Family looks at Nathalie Martin’s article, Survival in the Face of Scarcity: The Undocumented Immigrant Experience, 58 Ariz. L. Rev. 103 (2016), which is based on interviews with undocumented immigrants. She summarizes:
“After exploring how scarcity affects her study population, Martin argues strict immigration laws that allow no hope of regularizing status, the threat of deportation, and ineffective consumer protection laws create a scarcity tornado that is difficult to escape. Martin’s subjects know that they are vulnerable. They know that their lack of legal immigration status means they do not have a level hand in economic transactions or in employment relationships. This makes them hesitant to exercise any legal rights they may have outside of immigration law, either informally (for example, complaining about a billing error) or more formally through the courts.”
KJ