Unauthorized Immigrants as "Americans in Waiting:" A Call for Re-Articulating the Scope of Legality and Documentedness

Recent debates on immigration, both in the United States and abroad, have become increasingly controversial and politically charged. In the wake of President Obama’s November 2014 executive action to grant approximately 5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States protection from deportation, Congress remains  deadlocked on the immigration issue, as Republicans threaten to reverse the president’s actions by withholding funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In Europe, anti-immigration sentiment appears to be on the rise, as evidenced by the relative success of nativist movements in last year’s European parliamentary elections and recent large-scale anti-immigration demonstrations in  Germany.