Law
by
The current public image of Latinas/os in the United States is that of the foreign, racialized outsider, too often labeled by the pejorative term of “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” (Brimelow 1995; Johnson 1996; C. García 2012). This matters because such perceptions influence policy makers and can affect Latina/o rights under U.S. law, particularly within the immigration system (Johnson 2009; Lopez, Morin, and Taylor 2010). This negative image persists although three in four Latinas/ os are either U.S.-born (65 percent) or naturalized U.S. citizens (11 percent) (Krogstad and Lopez 2014). It is also true that immigration law and policy disproportionately impacts Latinas/os, who are the largest segment of the foreign-born group population in the United States (55 percent) and who represent 77 percent of the undocumented population. In 2012, Latinas/os were the largest minority group, totaling 54 million. Critical Latina/o legal theory (LatCrit) analyzes issues of race and civil rights with a distinct emphasis on U.S. immigration law and policy (Johnson 2013). The LatCrit focus reveals the anti-Latina/o bias, couched in anti-immigrant sentiments, which often obscures the nature of the discrimination experienced by many (American Immigration Council 2008). Immigration law and policy concerns about national security overshadow the excessively restrictive...
This essay may be found on page 118 of the printed volume.