Enduring Illegality

Name: Enduring Illegality
Brand: University of California Press
Price: 41.68 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

Time and the State of Waiting in Undocumented Middle Life

By: Angela S. García

Write A Review

eBook | 14 July 2026

At a Glance

Format
ePUB

eBook

RRP $46.22

$41.68

10%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $10.42 with

Available: 14th July 2026

Preorder. Download available after release.

Enduring Illegality chronicles the lives of undocumented Mexican immigrants who have spent decades in the United States waiting for a path to legalization that has yet to arrive. Based on longitudinal fieldwork, this book traces how people who migrated as young adults have transitioned into middle age still undocumented, caught in a state of legal and temporal suspension. Focusing on parents who would have qualified for the failed Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program, Angela S. Garcia argues that illegality is not only a legal condition but a temporal one, produced and reproduced through decades of waiting for reform. Even in the face of such exclusion, migrants sustain lives, labor, and care across borders. Enduring Illegality offers a critical account of how the state uses time as a mechanism of immigration control, structuring lives and inequality in ways that outlast any single policy or presidential administration.