Documenting as State Making: Dilemmas in Regularizing Undocumented Immigrants

• In Event: Political Crises and International Migration

Abstract

How can states provide mass documentation in the face of sudden forcible displacement from neighboring countries? This paper analytically describes one of the world’s largest and arguably most ambitious immigrant regularization programs: Colombia’s PPT. This unsung policy should receive greater attention since close to 70% of the 2.9 million immigrants from Venezuela have obtained, or are in the process of obtaining, a 10-year residence and work permit that can lead to permanent residence and, eventually, citizenship. The paper dialogues with theory on immigration that has centered state-immigrant relations on attempts to control (Hollifield et al. 2004; Hollifield et al. 2021; Ellerman 2009). Instead, this paper uses the case of the Colombian regularization; my sources include in-depth interviews with Colombian policymakers who were the architects of regularization as well as ethnographic work with Venezuelan immigrants. I use this case to build the ideal type of documentation as state-making and argue that regularization can be a form of strengthening state capacity. Examining mass documentation, I posit two simultaneous state-building dilemmas: that of policymakers at the helm of the state, and that of irregular immigrants who either accept to become governable and access rights that are underpinned by possibly weak bases, or they reject the bundle of rights in order to preserve perceived forms of freedom. The analysis also reveals that the regularization program is underpinned by the primacy of the executive branch and weak legislative bases and retains a form of extreme sovereignty of the executive, allowing it to strip rights of individual and all immigrants. As a parallel case to DACA and TPS in the US, I also draw lessons relevant for other destination states.

Author

• Andres Besserer Rayas, The Graduate Center, City University of New York