Mariela Nuñez-Janes had her first dance with U.S. citizenship politics when she was six years old. After her Puerto Rican mother married her Venezuelan father, her mom acquired a Venezuelan passport to pair with the US passport that she already had. When Nuñez-Janes was born in Venezuela, she also had two passports. At least, up until the day that her parents tried to renew her US passport in 1976, and it was revoked, along with her mother’s.
“The reasoning, according to the Department of State, was because Venezuela had amended their constitution…to grant automatic citizenship to Venezuelan spouses,” explains Nuñez-Janes. “So my mom automatically acquired her Venezuelan citizenship because she had married my dad. And the United States took that as an act of expatriation, meaning that she voluntarily gave up her citizenship.” That, Nunez-Janes remembers, was the explanation that she and her family were given.
Nuñez-Janes is a professor of Anthropology at the University of North Texas, an author, and an advocate for immigrant rights. She has invested much of her time and energy into researching and supporting undocumented youth movements. Years ago, Nuñez-Janes had a student in one of her classes who was detained, then deported. While trying to advocate for her student, Dr. Nunez-Janes first learned about the DREAM act.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, was first introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch in 2001. The goal of the bill is to provide permanent protections for undocumented American residents who entered the country as minors– a group of the American populace now known collectively as ‘Dreamers’. In the past two decades, at least 20 versions of the DREAM Act have been presented in Congress. In 2010, the bill passed the House but was squashed in the Senate, where it fell short by only five votes– the closest that the DREAM Act has ever come to being signed into law.
Despite the repeated failures of the DREAM Act in Congress, Nuñez-Janes continued her work for and with immigrant families. She co-authored a book called Eclipse of Dreams: The Undocumented-Led Struggle for Freedom, which not only tells the stories of undocumented activists across the country, but also points out that the DREAM Act is only the beginning of the fight for immigrant rights.
Something that Nunez-Janes calls the “stigma of illegality” is at least somewhat to blame for the shortcomings of this proposed bill. “Identities become stigmatized, and the reaction to that is to criminalize,” she explains. The DREAM Act, throughout its many iterations, consistently leaves out large sub-groups of undocumented peoples from the umbrella of protections and benefits the act would provide, if passed. The stigma of illegality has bled into both public thought and policy, constructing a narrative about who is, and who isn’t, deserving of American citizenship and assimilation.
In 2012, then US president Barack Obama announced DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive order that would protect those who crossed the border as kids from deportation. DACA has provided security and work eligibility to hundreds of thousands of Dreamers in the past twelve years. Along with the benefits that the program provides, however, DACA recipients have found themselves living in a legal limbo for much of the last 12 years. DACA faced immense challenges during the Trump campaign and afterwards, when the program was ruled unlawful in 2021 by Texas federal judge Andrew S. Hanen. Following the Texas lawsuit, DACA has effectively been closed to all new applicants.
The DREAM Act would undoubtedly be a step forward for immigrant rights…just not all immigrant rights. But as American Democrats and Republicans alike cry for heightened border “security” and punishment for “illegal” border trespassers, the bill remains one of the only pieces of proposed legislation that would offer relief for immigrants. And although immigrants’ rights activists, advocates, and undocumented peoples have continued to boldly vocalize their desire for change– the path to unlearning the stigma of illegality may be a long one.
“I think we, as a country, are such a far way off from engaging in that introspective kind of analysis, and myself included,” says Javier Hidalgo. It’s a perspective informed, at least in part, by his work as Legal Director for RAICES, the largest immigrant legal services provider in Texas. “It’s a very uncomfortable thing,” he says, to change the way we think about immigrants. “And we’re not necessarily, as a whole, a country that likes to get uncomfortable.”
Hidalgo has worked with RAICES since 2018, and in that time he has overseen cases for asylum seekers, detained immigrants, separated families, and all sorts of folks in need of legal aid. The uphill battle of fighting anti-immigration legislation in both the state and the nation has led Hidalgo and his team to redefine success in their work.
Despite loads of lost cases, Hidalgo tries to remember to celebrate the wins, no matter how few and far in between. “I might see the same type of case 20 times in a day, right?” He says. “But for each client, that case is the most important thing that’s going on in their life.”
There is no shortage of migrant individuals and families seeking legal help in Texas. Immigrant communities, and even Latinx citizens (who now make up the largest ethnic group in the state, per a 2023 U.S Census Bureau estimate) are finding themselves caught in the rigamarole of fierce anti- immigration legislation. And in many ways, Texas residents are on the front lines in a new wave of immigration reform that’s trickling into other states. In Texas’s recent history, state legislation has proposed (and in many cases, enacted) a series of programs, initiatives, and proposed bills that have caused ripple effects across the nation.
A bill proposed by Texas legislation in 2023, Senate Bill 4, would authorize state police to arrest anyone suspected of crossing the southern border illegally. At least seven other Republican states are expected to follow Texas’s lead with similar legislation, should SB4 be signed into law. But when and how did Texas become the nation’s puppet master in the war on immigration?
The Lone Star state has a special sort of long and tumultuous history. The name “Texas,” in fact, can be traced back to a group of indigenous tribes who lived peacefully, pre-colonization, in the northeast part of (what is now) Texas, and surrounding areas. “Taysha” translated roughly to “friend,” and the word was adopted by Spanish colonizers. And, because the tribes had amicable relations with Spanish settlers, the Spanish decided to call that little corner of the world by a name that was quite fitting, at the time: “Tejas.”
Spanish-colonized Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, and just 15 years later, the Tejas province broke from Mexico and rebranded. The Republic of Texas remained an independent country for nine whole years, a fact proudly touted in much of the state’s history curriculum. When Texas was annexed by the US in 1845, there were disputes over the border– the U.S said that the border fell along the Rio Grande, while Mexico claimed that it was further north at the Nueces river– a difference of about 150 miles. US troops entered the disputed area, Mexican troops retaliated, former president James K. Polk declared war, and thus ensued the Mexican American War.
As wars generally go, it was brutal, and many militant and civilian lives were lost. The Mexican government was severely destabilized during and after the war, in part because they’d ceded not only the disputed Tejas territory, but also California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. After the war, some US leaders actually considered going back for more land. While fighting, they had gotten a peek at Mexico City, in the central region of the country, and expansionist sentiments were running high.
Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was one of many that opposed a re-invasion of Mexico. His argument was– “we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race, the free white race.” He continued that he and his fellow Americans were “anxious to force free government on all,” and that it was America’s mission “to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world.”
Throughout the following centuries, there have been many attempts by U.S powers to realize Calhoun’s vision for the country. A common strategy throughout American history has been to enter foreign lands and enforce American ideals on non-Americans, often through military presence, and without regard to the human cost of doing so. Also on the agenda has been the fortification of US borders against many of the people that don’t fit the preferred “American” standard.
And it just so happened that the American standard fit squarely, with few exceptions, on white European immigrants. Through the 1960s, western immigrants entered the country without papers, and generally without any repercussions. As the tables turned and Latin American, African, and Asian immigrants began to migrate in higher numbers, harsher immigration restrictions began to fall into place.
The Bracero program, which permitted 800,000 Mexican migrants to come and work legally in the United States every year, was shut down. Protections for undocumented parents of US citizens were halted. Welfare programs were reformed in waves across the nation to block undocumented peoples from receiving any benefits– and the list of anti-immigrant initiatives has grown considerably since the late 20th century.
Of course, the American populace has also grown, changed, and adapted to new ways of thinking since Calhoun made the case for an all-white America. And yet, the concept of keeping our borders “secure” against the “outsider” has nestled itself so deeply into the American psyche, that immigrant rights advocates and proponents of softer border policies are frequently labeled as radicals. The two party system, which has dominated US politics almost as long as the country has existed, has done much to ensure that this remains the case.
“To militarize– to ‘secure’ the border, is a bipartisan project,” says Nuñez-Janes. “Both Democrats and Republicans have been chipping away at the asylum process.” By using political strategy and tactics, she explains, they’ve “manufactured a human crisis at the border that shouldn’t exist.”
Politicians have, in the country’s recent past, made a game out of immigrant lives. A glaring example of this came at the beginning of 2024, when Senate democrats introduced an immigration bill that looked like a page ripped right out of the GOP playbook. The bill proposed about $14 million in emergency funding for ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Patrol), as well as additional funding for the border wall and an option to shut down the border entirely should crossings reach a certain weekly average.
Donald Trump called on Republican senators to kill the bill, which they answered dutifully, and the bill was squashed before leaving the Senate. But why did the Democratic party introduce this bill in the first place? Whether the goal was to expose Trump as a fraud and an antagonist, or to actually pass the bill through Congress, this rightward pivot from the “people’s party” signaled that they, too, were more concerned about playing the game than protecting immigrant lives.
“It’s crazy,” Dr. Nunez-Janes says (clarifying that this opinion is strictly her own). “Politicians are pushing (an) ultra-conservative, white supremacist, heteronormative agenda without necessarily…causing an alarm for people that should know better.” While many progressive Democrats oppose their party’s rightward shift on immigration, Democratic Americans as a whole have shifted drastically to favor stricter border policies.
As seen in a Gallup study published in July of 2024, Democratic support for decreased immigration went up from 18% in 2023 to 28% in 2024. The study also reveals that among the American public, there is almost an even split between those in favor of (47%), and those opposed to (51%), “deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country.”
For decades U.S. legislators, media outlets, and large groups of the public have circulated the idea that the country has a limited amount of resources (whether land, money, jobs, water, etc). “It’s a very effective tool for leaders, and folks in power, to play on this idea of scarcity,” says Hidalgo. “What I have I must protect, and I must protect against them, who are going to come and take it from me.”
The infamous ‘come and take it’ flag was first sewn at the outset of the Texas Revolution– a taunting battle cry, daring Mexican forces to come and take back a small brass cannon that they had lent the Tejas province to fight indigenous tribes with. The flag has since been appropriated to mean many things, including a statement in defense of the 2nd amendment right to bear arms. It’s raised proudly throughout the state, and continues to send the same message– ‘try to take what I have, and see what happens.’
Texas’s modern history, as it relates to migration law and policy, took a turn in the early 1980s. It was a bleak time for many Americans as the economy hit an energy crisis, and subsequently, a recession that affected huge parts of the country. Texas’s highly lucrative petroleum industry became even more profitable as gas prices spiked nationwide. Domestic and international migrants flocked to the state in unprecedented numbers, looking for work and affordable living.
The population of foreign born Texas residents rose from 3% to 17% in just a few decades, and the number has continued to grow in the decades since. Anti-immigration sentiments have risen sharply since the Trump administration, and Texas, with its Republican-dominated population and border-adjacent location, emerged as the perfect candidate to combat “illegals,” as Trump calls them, on the front line.
Nuñez-Janes is a Texas resident and, for just a couple of years now, a naturalized citizen of the United States. But neither the process nor the decision to regain her American citizenship was an easy one. She attempted, first, to simply re-apply for an American passport– given that she had one when she was born. But Nuñez-Janes was met with insurmountable red tape and eventually, that route proved to be a dead end.
It was during the Trump administration that she began to feel a sharp urgency to solidify her ability to stay in the country– Nuñez-Janes, like many who live in the U.S without documentation, has a husband, a kid, a house, and a career. An attorney friend told her that she was eligible to apply for naturalization, so she did.
“In the application for naturalization, they ask, ‘have you ever claimed US citizenship,’ she explains. “And I had to respond, ‘yes,’ because I had a US passport, and I did– I applied for a renewal.” This sent the USCIS (US Customs and Immigration Services) office, where Nuñez-Janes had her appointment, into chaos.
“There were about three people in the office trying to figure it out, and looking up immigration law from the 1970s, and you know, asking all these questions, and I’m just sitting there,” she remembers. Eventually, the manager told the immigration agent who was handling Nuñez-Janes’ interview, “it’s up to you.”
“It’s like, I’m in your hands,” Nuñez-Janes recalls feeling the agonizing stress of that moment. “It seemed to me like it was an hour, but it was probably just a minute,” until she finally heard the words that her case was approved. And that’s what DACA recipients feel all the time, she added, with remorse. “Your life is in somebody else’s hands.”
The challenges that DACA recipients, and Nuñez-Janes, and much of today’s undocumented community have come up against are not meant to protect American resources. They are meant, at their core, to defend Calhoun’s original vision for the United States. For political players and policymakers in Capitol Hill, Nuñez-Janes speculates, “it’s the people who are migrating who are the problem, not the migration itself”– but of course, they can’t say it quite like that anymore.