“We’re being taken advantage of. We’re not being respected. If you’re undocumented, you have no rights.”1 This is a common refrain among undocumented Mexican immigrants and often signals the start of a struggle against exploitative employers or landlords.2 Indeed, it would seem that undocumented immigrants do not enjoy many rights. After crossing the border, they are told by other recent immigrants that they must avoid detection by and interaction with the state at all costs, or risk deportation. In the five years María Ramírez,3 a young mother who migrated from Puebla, Mexico, and her husband have lived in New York City, they have never visited the Statue of Liberty, the Bronx Zoo, or their cousins in New Jersey. They fear that even buying an admission ticket on a commuter rail train, they might be forced to reveal their lack of English proficiency, asked to show identification, or otherwise risk revealing their undocumented status. Many immigrants report that they are mistreated by employers, refused services by medical providers, and charged exorbitant rents for ill-maintained housing by landlords on the premise that they are undocumented. Further, their undocumented status is given as a rationale by those who tell immigrants that they not only must accept such treatment but have no one to whom they might complain. The U.S. news media circulate xenophobic opinions about immigrants: that they gave up their rights by crossing the border illegally, and their status as “lawbreakers” makes them undeserving of any consideration, rights, or benefits.
