’Til deportation do us part

The American citizenship status of all of United States (US) citizen participants was stable at the time of interviews. Though scholars of immigration and citizenship have often overlooked mixed-citizenship status families, these families represent a significant and growing proportion of contemporary immigrant families. For families dealing with deportation and bars to re-entering the US, the rejection of a spouse is often perceived as a rejection of the citizen herself. Various scholars have explored the ways in which citizenship extends beyond, and sometimes defies, official legal status. C. Joppke argues that the substance of legal citizenship depends on the rights encompassed by that citizenship, which subsequently affects sense of belonging. Many US citizens in mixed-status families have found that their access to citizenship rights–civil, political, and/or social–has been directly impacted by their families&s; non-citizen status.