There are approximately eleven million undocumented people living in the United States, and most of them have family members who are U.S. citizens. There is a common perception that marriage to a U.S. citizen puts undocumented immigrants on a quick-and-easy path to U.S. citizenship. But for people who have entered the U.S. unlawfully and live here without papers, the line to legal status is neither short nor easy, even for those with spouses who are U.S. citizens.

Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families follows mixed-status couples down the long and bumpy road of immigration processing. It explores how they navigate every step along the way, from the decision to undertake legalization, to the immigration interview in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to the effort to put together a case of "extreme hardship" so that the undocumented family member can return. Author Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz also discusses families' efforts to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of immigration processing--both for those who are successful and those who are not.

Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. Her work has been published in American Anthropologist, Human Organization, and The DuBois Review. She is the author of Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network (OUP, 2010).

Preface
Legalization Flowchart

Chapter 1: Four Million Families
René and Molly
The Argument
The Project
The Process
The Book

Chapter 2: Grounds for Exclusion: The U.S. Immigration System
Enrique and Anya
History of the Politics and Politics in the History
Free White Men of Good Moral Character: 18th and 19th Century
The Quota System and the Bracero Program: 1924 to 1964
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Enforcement Era: the 1980s to Today
Does Race Still Matter?
Grounds for Inclusion
Family-Based Visas
Employment-Based Visas
Humanitarian Visas
Diversity Immigrant Visas
Conclusion

Chapter 3: The Family Petition
Cynthia and Hector
Gender, Family, and Status
Deciding to Legalize
Do We Have the Right Kind of Family?
Are We Eligible?
Can We Afford It?
Is it Worth It?
When Immigration Processing is not a Choice

Chapter 4: The Punishment
Marco and Tanya
The Legal Nonexistence of Unlawful Entrants
Going to Juárez
The Medical Exam
Biometrics
The Consular Interview
"Criminal" Complications
Outcomes

Chapter 5: Extreme Hardship
Pamela and Victor
Extreme Hardship
Medical Hardship
Financial Hardship
Emotional Hardship
Hardship Upon Relocation
Good Moral Character
Waiting for a Decision
The Wheels Come Off in Juárez
The Juárez Wives
Model Citizens, Model Families
Changes to the System

Chapter 6: Life After Legal Status
All Families
The Greatest Feeling Ever
Readjusting in the Aftermath of Legalization
Movin' On Up?
They Can Take It Away
Banished
Jane and Isaiah
Wendy and Paolo
Jorge and Beth
Life After Legalization

Chapter 7: Documented and Deportable
René and Molly
Making Sense of a Broken System
Precarity as Policy
Making Law Visible

Appendices
A Note on Terminology
List of Abbreviations
References Cited