Remnants of illegality: DACA, legal status, and unlearning illegality

This paper examines transitions between legal statuses as an ongoing negotiated process between undocumented embodiments and legal realities. Rather than viewing legal statuses as mutually exclusive states of existence, I contend that transitioning through statuses leaves behind what I call remnants of illegality – lingering effects of previous legal designations that continue to shape a person's behavior and worldview even after the person is no longer in that status. Interviews with 20 formerly undocumented/DACA Californians reveal that the remnants of illegality alter participants' understanding of legal status, everyday behaviors, and understandings of self. Although participants struggle to bridge the gap between their remnants of illegality and legal realities, their stories suggest that they actively work to unlearn these remnants, indicating their potential impermanence. Broadly, these findings propose a new concept for understanding the impacts of illegality and also challenge assumptions about legal status as an idealistic end-goal solution to the condition of illegality.