IMMIGRANT FAMILY SEPARATION, FEAR, AND THE U.S. DEPORTATION REGIME

Abstract

In 2018, President Trump changed a long-standing policy of keeping families who cross the United States border together; instead, he ordered that parents be detained separately from children, drawing a national outcry that led to his administration walking back the practice. Drawing on 50 in-depth interviews with undocumented young adults in the state of Florida, USA, we argue that the practice of family separation through immigration policy is not new. We illustrate how our sample’s undocumented status puts them at risk for family separation under the current ‘deportation regime’ that creates a heightened and all-encompassing fear about the possibility of family separation.

Keywords

• family separation
• immigration policy
• deportation
• undocumented immigrants