DOCUMENTED, UNDOCUMENTED, AND LIMINALLY LEGAL: Legal Status During the Transition to Adulthood for 1.5-Generation Brazilian Immigrants

This article deconstructs the illegal-legal binary that characterizes much immigration scholarship. Using in-depth interviews with 42 1.5-generation Brazilian immigrants in young adulthood, I find that respondents discuss a distinct hierarchy with four categories of legal membershipundocumented, liminal legality, lawful permanent resident (LPR), and citizenthat affect their daily lives and incorporation. Liminally legal and LPR statuses in particular challenge this illegal-legal dichotomy. Liminal legality is an in-between status in which immigrants possess social security numbers and work permits but have no guarantee of eventual citizenship. Without opportunities to regularize their status, both undocumented and liminally legal young adults face increased vulnerabilities to poverty and social exclusion. Liminally legal youth, however, are in better positions than their undocumented peers during early adulthood because of state-delimited rights associated with their legal status.