Interstitial Precarity: The Romance and Tragedy of the Transnational Child Welfare System

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Chicago's Mexican Consulate and the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS), which obliges DCFS to provide prompt consular notification after assuming protective custody of a Mexican or Mexican American minor. Developed in 2001, this bilateral agreement also enables consular officials to gain access to child welfare cases involving their minor nationals and requires DCFS to consider placing such minors with their deported or noncustodial parents in Mexico, whenever possible. Drawing on ethnographic research collected in Chicago and Mexico from 2016 to 2019, I explore the possibilities created through the MOU, which not only opens up new opportunities for transnational family reunification in Mexico but also enables Mexican institutions to challenge DCFS's expertise. And yet, the MOU also produces what I call “interstitial precarity” for the minors it tries to help. This is a lack of belonging, stability, and recognition that results not from the denial of one's citizenship but from falling between the cracks of multiple, discordant bureaucratic systems. Accordingly, this article evaluates the MOU's potential to expand the family‐making options available to mixed‐status families through a dialectical reading of its romantic and tragic effects. [child welfare, reunification, transnational, immigration, precarity]