The ordinary lives and uneven precarity of the DACAmented: visualising migrant precarity in metropolitan Washington

Abstract

ABSTRACT In many countries, undocumented immigrant youth experience differential socio-legal considerations because of their real and perceived vulnerability. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an example of a relatively new ‘temporary’ and ‘skilled’ migrant category in the United States created for undocumented youth in 2012 and rescinded 5 years later with a new administration. Nearly 700,000 immigrants still have DACA as of 2019. To visualise the place-specific and day-to-day experiences of being DACAmented, we used a photo solicitation approach with college students living in Metropolitan Washington DC. The value of this method is discussed with regard to appreciating the importance of protected places, scalar uncertainties, and the shifting socio-legal frameworks that immigrant youth contend within an urban immigrant gateway. The research underscores that those with DACA experience spatially uneven and oscillating precarity over time and yet the ‘ordinariness’ of their daily lives is a political expression of belonging. The possibility that this status could completely disappear in 2020 heightens the overall precarity for this group. This case study is indicative of broader trends towards the creation of temporary socio-legal structures for undocumented youth that can either heighten or lessen their precarity over time and across scales.