Immigrants from Central America in the U.S. On "Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants" by Cecilia Menjívar and Leisy J.Abrego and "Automobility, Immobility, Altermobility: Surviving and Resisting the Intensification of Immigrant Policing"

In "Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants", Cecilia Menjívar and Leisy J.Abrego show how the new immigration legislation is affecting the lives of immigrants in the U.S. This takes them to talk about legal violence that results from the enforcement of these laws as they cause many difficulties and burdens for undocumented immigrants but also for those documented. It affects immigrants as families, workers and students.  In Automobility, Immobility, Altermobility: Surviving and Resisting the Intensification of Immigrant Policing, Angela Stuesse and Mathew Coleman focus on the special effects that the enforcement of the new laws has on the immigrants mobility and shows the creative ways in which the undocumented immigrants of Georgia were able to create ways to escape law oppression.

The authors of the first article argue that due to the fact that the structural and symbolic violence inherent in the laws seems to be ´motivated by positive intentions or is the incidental by-product of other goals, or is socially accepted or lauded´(p.1383) we tend not to realize it´s there. However, this violence, codified in the law causes violent outcomes that result in "immediate social suffering" (p.1384). The main contradiction of the new legislation is that whereas it makes it more difficult for the immigrants to become documented, the laws are more strict when punishing those immigrants and not guaranteeing them the basic rights. Therefore, the state, as in the case of the barrios in Bolivia is a kind of a phantom that punishes illegality but does not extent protection that should be guaranteed to U.S citizens to the undocumented immigrants.  The challenges that an immigrant faces in the U.S sometimes may start before even getting to the country as the smugglers at the border impose enormous fees on them in order to let them go in a way that they incur in debts since very early and if they can´t pay it, they are threatened and also their families back home. This is an example of how immigration laws in the U.S affect not only the immigrants but also their families back home.

The law shapes the everyday lives of the immigrants in different ways by criminalizing them and therefore imposing on them a continuous threat of deportation.  As the authors affirm that the attack on 9-11 established a link between immigration and crime/terrorism or more accurately presented an opportunity to establish that link for the state. Mass media in the country also contribute to this criminalization of immigrants as for example the immigration raids are presented in a way that it associates immigrants with crime. The status of ´undocumented´ makes immigrants more vulnerable by the threat of deportation present in their lives as the number of deportations is raising to the point that it reached 396, 906 in 2011. The looming fear of being deported influences the decisions that immigrants make on their daily basis. As shown by Stuesse and Colman, driving is one of the practices that expose an immigrant the most to this threat and therefore many people have decided to give up on driving as they don´t want to pay incredibly high fees and especially being deported. This has given place to creative ways of avoiding police controls by the immigrants such as creating social networks in which they alert each other or collaborate so that the undocumented immigrants don´t have to drive and therefore risk being deported. As Clara statement shows the threat is crucial in when taking decision in their daily lives: "So no, we don´t drive together. What if we are stopped and we get deported"(p.1401).

The constant workplace raids looking for undocumented immigrants affect the immigrants´ work in that sometimes, out of fear, they don´t go to work.  This fear also allows more space for the employers exploitation of the workers as the workers tend to accept their depreciation as reflected by this immigrant words: "I´m illegal, I have no rights. I´m nobody in this country" (p.1404). For

 students, it comes as a shock to discover that their status in the U.S is illegal as they have been leaving in the country since they are little. They start to feel less American and also less motivated as they become aware of the difficulties they will face in the future to be able to go to college or to work after getting education.  They are also deprived from the opportunity of getting scholarships as a reward for good school performance which is not very motivating either.

The situation of the immigrants in the U.S, influenced by state promoted laws, reminds one of the inhabitants of the barrios in Cochabamba who were being oppressed by laws that gave them a status of illegal and at the same time they didn´t have access to basic legal protections.  The fact that this phenomenon also seems to occur in the U.S for the undocumented immigrants shows to what extent law is one of the main instruments by which the state can manage its subject realities.