From Here and There

Diaspora Policies, Integration, and Social Rights Beyond Borders

Alexandra Délano Alonso

The first book-length treatment of consular offerings and services
Key reading for scholars who specialize in migration, citizenship, transnationalism, diaspora, integration and governance
Multi-sited ethnography that includes over 200 interviews with government officials, 50 representatives of community organizations or foundations that collaborate with consulates, and 135 migrant program participants
Discusses the effects of anti-immigrant backlash in the United States in migrants and their families and alternative policies and practices that address these effects and attempt to shift attitudes towards migrants
Examines the effects of DACA from the perspective of origin countries, including returned Dreamers and reintegration policies

From Here and There

Diaspora Policies, Integration, and Social Rights Beyond Borders

Alexandra Délano Alonso

Description

When immigrants to the United States need to learn English, receive health services, open a bank account or get a work certification, US state and local governments or non-profit organizations usually assist as part of the process of supporting immigrant integration and, ultimately, citizenship. But over the past two decades, Mexico, and other origin countries of migrants have been increasingly filling gaps in these activities through their consular representations, particularly focusing on populations with precarious legal status. Put in the larger context of diaspora policies, these practices — focused on establishing closer ties between the origin country and the emigrant population and protecting their rights through the provision of social services — are one of the clearest manifestations of the reconceptualization of the boundaries of citizenship and the rights and obligations that come with it.

This book looks at citizenship and immigrant integration from the perspective of countries of origin: specifically the processes through which Mexico and other Latin American countries are establishing programs to give their emigrant populations better access to education, health, banking, labor rights, language acquisition and civic participation in the United States. While immigrant integration is often assumed as an issue that mainly concerns the population and institutions of the country of destination, these cases demonstrate the role that origin countries play in supporting migrants' access to opportunities to participate as members of the societies they are a part of, challenging the limits of citizenship and sovereignty, and offering examples of innovative practices in the protection of migrants' rights. As an area of migration governance that is rarely discussed, this book offers a critical evaluation of these programs and their impact on emigrants, particularly on those who are undocumented or have precarious legal status, and the collaborations between governments and civil society groups on which the programs are based.

From Here and There

Diaspora Policies, Integration, and Social Rights Beyond Borders

Alexandra Délano Alonso

Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Shifting Diaspora Policies towards Integration in the Country of Destination: Filling Gaps, Extending Social Rights, and Promoting a Political Agenda
Chapter 2 - Transnational Social Protection and Integration through Ventanillas de Salud and Plazas Comunitarias
Chapter 3 - Consular Protection, Social Rights, and Solidarity across Borders:
From a National to a Latin American Agenda
Chapter 4 - The Limits of Transnational Social Protection: Integration, Reintegration, and the 1.5 Generation
Conclusions - Towards Transnational Membership: The Case for Shared Responsibility and Accountability
Notes
Bibliography
Index

From Here and There

Diaspora Policies, Integration, and Social Rights Beyond Borders

Alexandra Délano Alonso

Author Information

Alexandra Délano Alonso, Associate Professor of Global Studies, The New School University

Alexandra Délano Alonso is Associate Professor of Global Studies at The New School and the current holder of the Eugene M. Lang Professorship for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. Her work is driven by a concern with the inequalities underlying the causes of migration, the structures that lead to the marginalization of undocumented migrants in the public sphere, and the limited protection of their rights, from a transnational perspective. Her book Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848 was the co-winner of the William LeoGrande Prize for the best book on US-Latin America Relations.

From Here and There

Diaspora Policies, Integration, and Social Rights Beyond Borders

Alexandra Délano Alonso

Reviews and Awards

"All in all, this book shows evidence of how states of origin can have a positive influence on the integration of their citizens living in other countries. Thus, it is a highly recommendable read for policy-makers involved in the formulation of integration and diaspora policies; academic colleagues interested in the study of transnationalism, citizenship and integration policies; and for migrants themselves, the book's main protagonist, since they will surely be inspired to find new ways of organizing and new areas of mobilization." - Pau Palop-García, Institue of Latin American Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, International Migration Review

"Alexandra Délano Alonso's work...provides valuable insights for a further reconceptualization of theories of immigrant integration." - Lara Wilhelmine Hoffmann, Nordicum-Mediterraneum

"Délano's research remains especially relevant in the current U.S. era of nativism, enhanced immigration enforcement, and a hardening retrenchment of services that is harming low-wage immigrants in particular. Délano's account poses important questions about the limits of bilateral coordination around immigrant wellbeing, especially when the administration of the receiving country seems more interested in building physical, as well as economic and political, walls with its southern neighbours." - Shannon Gleeson, Ethnic and Racial Studies

"This book brilliantly dismantles, and then carefully reconstructs, the idea of immigrant'integration.' This is a captivating account of transnational politics in action." - Linda Bosniak, author of The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership

"From Here and There is key reading for scholars who specialize in immigration, citizenship, transnationalism, and the state, as it breaks new ground in theorizing and detailing the role of the state via diasporic citizens." - Susan Coutin, author of Exiled Home: Salvadoran Transnational Youth in the Aftermath of Violence

"In this beautifully written, closely researched account, Délano Alonso offers an insightful and nuanced account of how citizenship, social welfare, and sovereignty are redefined and about who the new winners and losers are." - Peggy Levitt, author of Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display.