Legalizing Moves analyzes the battle Salvadoran immigrants have fought for two decades to win legal permanent residency in the United States. Drawing on interviews with Salvadoran asylum applicants, observations of deportation hearings, and fieldwork within the Salvadoran community in Los Angeles, Susan Bibler Coutin illustrates the profound effects of increasingly restrictive immigration laws on the lives of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Susan Bibler Coutin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, at the University of California, Irvine.