Get started
Work

Caught Between Rights and Vows: The Negative Impacts of U.S. Spousal Reunification Policies on Mixed-Status, Transnational Families with Low “Importability”

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This study examines how U.S. immigration policies enact legal violence and multigenerational punishment through the spousal reunification process, particularly in mixed-status, transnational families. Building on the concept of “deportability,” we introduce “importability” to describe a beneficiary’s potential to secure permanent residency, which varies according to social markers such as race, gender, and region of origin. Drawing from a content analysis of threads on the Immigration Pathways (IP) web forum, we analyze discussions among U.S. citizen petitioners navigating marriage-based green card applications, with a focus on experiences involving administrative processing (AP) (i.e., marriage fraud investigations). Our findings show that couples who do not align with the state’s conception of “proper” family—particularly U.S. citizen women petitioning for Black African partners—face intensified scrutiny, long delays, and burdensome requirements, including DNA tests and surveillance. These bureaucratic obstacles produce prolonged family separation, financial strain, and diminished sense of belonging, especially for children in single-parent households. Through the lens of “importability,” we reveal how legal violence and multigenerational punishment of immigration policies on mixed-status families beyond deportation threats, functioning as a gatekeeping mechanism that disproportionately affects marginalized families. This research highlights the understudied consequences of immigration policies on citizen petitioners and contributes to a broader understanding of inequality in U.S. immigration enforcement.
DOI: 10.3390/socsci14070442
Language: English
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
OpenAlex ID: W4412515129
FWCI: 1.773
Cites: 40
Cited by: 1
Related to: 10