Eithne Luibhéid
Pregnant on Arrival:
Making the Illegal Immigrant
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Lecture/Discussion 1
Republic of Ireland
Population: 4.5 million (2011)
84.5% White Irish
9.1% Other White
1.9% Asian / Asian Irish
1.4% Black / Black Irish
(16,300 Nigerians in 2006)
0.7% White Irish Traveller
84.2 % Catholic
Brief History of the Irish Republic
Ireland in the United Kingdom
1801 Ireland becomes part of the United Kingdom (under British rule)
1845-1849 Great Famine
Irish population drops 30% from 8 million
1 million die, 1.5 million emigrate mostly to the U.S.
NOTE: Irish population decline continues until the 1960s
1880 Irish demands for Home Rule begin
1916 Easter Rebellion against British rule
1919-1921 Irish War of Independence
Independent Ireland
1922 Irish Free State established (without Northern Ireland)
1922-1923 Irish Civil War
1937 Irish Constitution
1947 Republic of Ireland
1972 Republic of Ireland joins EEC (later EU)
Before the Irish became White: Racist
images from 19th century mainstream
US and British publications
The Irish Immigrant Problem in the
U.S. and U.K.—Men or Brutes?
Pregnant on Arrival
Colonial legacies: British racialization of Irish migrant women
Irish women’s bodies were implicitly present in stereotyping through their
role in the process of reproduction, especially their ‘excessive’ fertility … The
rhetoric focuses on families and their threat to the English way of life both
biologically and culturally. These include through ‘swamping’ and racial
degeneration, the weakening of Protestantism, unfair demands for resources
and lack of control over bodies, both their own and those of unruly, dirty,
and over-numerous children. (33, quote from Bronwyn Walter, Outsiders
Inside, p. 91)
• Why did British racialization focus on Irish women’s reproduction, families,
and children?
• In what ways was Irish fertility seen to undermine “the English way of life?”
• How does this attitude parallel contemporary Irish attitudes towards
pregnant asylum seekers?
• Why does Irish racism towards Africans reproduce British racism towards
the Irish?
Irish Women compared to English
Women in the British Press
Stereotypes of Irish Migrant
Women’s Hyper-Fertility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsWxk
U0g9Z4
Monty Python on Irish Catholic immigrants
in England
(The Meaning of Life, 1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifgHHh
w_6g8
Monty Python on British Protestants
(The Meaning of Life)
Pregnant on Arrival
The Republic of Ireland as an ‘Imagined Community”
After independence, social ideals became institutionalized, including in the
1937 constitution, which imagined a nation organized through patriarchal
heterosexual marriage—one where women were regulated to the role of
wives and child bearers within the privatized home … Moreover, the vision
and version of Irishness that was enshrined in the constitution and reflected
in social policy was not simply patriarchal and sexually normalizing; it also
conceived ‘Irish’ people as settled, Catholic, ‘white,’ and bourgeois.
Immigrant, Black, Jewish, and Traveller women were not generally the
women whose childbearing was envisioned as perpetuating the nation. (345)
• Why was new Irish nation “organized through patriarchal heterosexual
marriage?”
• How did patriarchal heteronormativity intersect with other categories such
as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and national origin?
• How did these intersections affect attitudes towards the reproduction of
Other women?
Irish Constitution (1937): Catholic Family Values
Articles 41 & 42:
The State recognizes the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit
group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and
imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.
The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the family in its constitution and
authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the
welfare of the Nation and the State.
… the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and [the
Constitution] guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents
to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual,
physical and social education of their children.
Reversing the Migration Flow
Immigration into Ireland since the 1990s
Pregnant on Arrival
Terminology
When discussing migrants who are variously characterized as illegal,
irregular, unauthorized, undocumented, nonstatus, clandestine, sans
papières, sin papeles, and so on, word choices are never neutral.
Rather they reflect specific histories and political perspectives in a
deeply polarized debate. Moreover, debates about terminology are
inseparable from questions about how we conceptualize the subjects,
objects, and processes of analysis. (vii)
• How do terms reflect specific histories and political perspectives?
• How do they shape the way “we conceptualize subjects, objects, and
processes of analysis?”
• Why does Luibhéid use the term “illegal migrant” despite these
problems?
Official Immigrant Categories
Legal Immigrant
Illegal Immigrant
Authorized by host country
Unauthorized by host country
Refugee
Asylum Seeker
Authorized by host country
Seeking authorization by host
country
Pregnant on Arrival
Moral panics about illegal immigration
In recent decades, illegal immigration has been described as threatening
national sovereignty; undermining social, welfare, health, and labor market
benefits; spawning crime; challenging social control, and, in worst case
scenarios, enabling terrorism. As a result, efforts to control and prevent
illegal immigration have risen to the top of the agenda in global north states,
leading to extensive changes in both immigration and citizenship laws. … Yet
claims about illegal immigration and efforts to prevent it generally overlook
… the social construction of migrant illegality that shows that designations of
illegality and legality are products of law, politics, and society. (6)
• Why is illegal immigration perceived to be such a threat to global north
countries?
• How have they responded to that perceived threat?
• Why do claims about illegal immigration overlook the social construction of
migrant legality and illegality?
Pregnant on Arrival
Irish In-Migration
The expansion of Irish migration controls [in the 1990s] occurred in a context of
deepening Europeanization and neoliberalization, as well as a booming economy,
which resulted in significantly rising rates of in-migration. Many migrants were
recruited to fill labor niches; others were Irish emigrants who saw opportunities to
return; still others were international students or people seeking asylum. Labor
migrants were far more numerous than asylum seekers, but government officials
conceived labor migrants as temporary and expected them to leave. Asylum
seekers were another matter, however. Not only did they arrive in growing
numbers but their cases often took years to resolve. Since they were not permitted
to engage in paid labor … their presence entailed welfare costs … Thus, control over
asylum seekers rather than labor migrants was initially identified as the most
pressing migration issue … (192)
• How did Europeanization and neoliberalization encourage migration into Ireland
in the 1990s?
• Why were government officials less concerned about labor migrants than asylum
seekers?
• How did the focus on asylum seekers affect the migration debate in Ireland?
Recent migration
statistics for Ireland
Positive Spin:
Profile of
undocumented
workers in
Ireland
(c. 20 to 26k)
Comparative
Note:
Undocumented
Irish workers in
the U.S.
number about
50k (c. 30k in
New York City)
2014 Dublin Citizenship Ceremony for 4,000 New Citizens
Refugees vs Asylum Seekers
Refugee (UN definition from 1951 Refugee Convention)
A refugee is defined as someone who: "owing to a well-founded fear of
being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of
his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to
avail himself of the protection of that country.”
NOTE: An asylum seeker is someone who has applied for but has yet to
be granted refugee status.
Pregnant on Arrival
Asylum seeker vulnerability
Asylum seekers are even more vulnerable to the loss of legal status [than
other migrants] precisely because their status is inherently transitional.
Being an ‘asylum seeker’ gives the migrant the right to remain in the
territory—although under very restrictive conditions—only while the state
reviews the migrant’s claim for protection from persecution. Once the review
is complete and all appeals have been exhausted, some asylum seekers
become redesignated as refugees … But the vast majority … become
redesignated as deportable and illegal. (8)
• How do asylum seekers enter the national territory of the ‘host’ country?
• How does this affect their status as migrants?
• How does their special status increase their vulnerability?
• Why might asylum seekers be even more vulnerable than other ‘illegal’
migrants?
AntiDeportation
Activists
http://antideport
ationireland.blog
spot.fi/
Pregnant on Arrival
Asylum seekers and immigration control in Ireland
… as the number of asylum seekers grew, from 39 in 1992 to 11,634 a decade
later, there came claims that most were ‘really’ illegal immigrants, not
‘genuine’ asylum seekers, and the childbearing was enabling them to
circumvent migration controls and settle down permanently. Asylum
seeking—as opposed to labor migration—was therefore the area where
immigration was initially diagnosed as most out of control, and as
demonstrating the need for the government to redefine and expand its
controls … Through the concerns about pregnant asylum seekers, specifically,
heteronormativity would become central to the ways that migration into
Ireland was problematized: new strategies for managing migration were
developed, the construct of the ‘illegal immigrant’ was discursively
produced, and norms of good citizenship were rearticulated. (13)
• Why were pregnant asylum seekers singled out as a special problem?
• Why was correcting their “abuse” of the asylum process of special interest
to the Irish government?
• What role does “heteronormativity” play in shaping government responses
to “illegal” migration and the norms of good citizenship?
Asylum
Applications
for Ireland
(1992-2006)
Pregnant on Arrival
Irish difference
In line with EU trends, Ireland sought to preempt the arrival of asylum seekers in
the first place, and, when this failed, implemented procedures that resulted in an
overwhelming majority of their claims becoming invalidated on bureaucratic and
technical grounds. What made the Irish situation different … was that pregnancy
and childbearing became an important means through which asylum seekers—and
indeed all migrants—could redefine their legal status. This was possible because of
two interrelated factors: first, until January 1, 2005, Ireland granted birthright
citizenship to anyone born on Irish soil or seas. Second, in 1990, the Supreme Court
had ruled in the Fajujonu case that nonnational parents of Irish citizen children
were entitled to reside in Ireland unless the state could provide a compelling and
exceptional reason to prevent them from doing so. (15-16)
• Why did Ireland follow EU trends in discouraging asylum seekers?
• How did Irish law up until 2005 provide a unique opportunity for asylum seekers?
• Why was taking advantage of this opportunity seen as cheating by many Irish
politicians and the general public?
Birthright Citizenship
Dark Blue: Unconditional; Medium Blue: Restricted; Light Blue: Abolished
1937 Irish Constitution, Article 2: it is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland,
which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation.
Pregnant on Arrival
The Lobe and Osayande Case (2003 Supreme Court Decision)
In both cases … the women’s ‘advanced’ pregnancy prevented the garda
[police] from speedily deporting families whose search for asylum had been
denied on technical grounds. Once the Irish children were born, however,
the families applied for leave to remain based on the birth of children—who
were citizens only because the garda had delayed the families’ deportations.
Accordingly, the families appeared to be calculating, ungrateful, and cynically
deploying childbearing to thwart the state’s efforts to control immigration.
(44)
• What were the technical grounds for dismissing these two asylum cases?
• Why did the garda (police) refrain from deporting the pregnant women
despite the dismissal of their cases?
• Why did the families in these two cases appear calculating, ungrateful, and
cynical?
• Why did the Irish Minister for Justice John O’Donoghue select these two
cases to help overturn the Fajujonu case?
Life after the L & O case
Irish citizen George-Jordan Dimbo (11) lives in a hostel
(right) with his non-citizen parents under threat of
deportation
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/world/europe/25irel
and.html
Pregnant on Arrival
Irish characters in migration narratives
Irish narratives of illegal migration “deployed different combinations of social
actors in a drama around heterosexual sex … The Irish figures included the
‘innocent’ Irish girl, imagined as white, young, and probably rural, who was
being taken advantage of; pregnant, unmarried inner-city women or girls
who accepted cash for lying about the father’s identity; Irish women who
were sluts and disloyal to the nation because of their supposed desire for sex
with Black men; and Irish men who had new opportunities for sexual
adventure … These Irish figures were rendered ‘Irish’ in part through their
contrast with various migrant figures.” (41)
• How do these Irish figures reflect fears about interracial relationships?’
• How do they represent fears about female sexuality?
• How do they reproduce racist European colonial ideas about “native”
sexualities?
Citizenship Through
Marriage to an Irish
Citizen
right: Miss Ireland (2010) Emma
Waldron with her Nigerian boyfriend
Manners Oshafi
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic
le-1368066/Miss-Ireland-Were-lovedont-care-racists-say-us.html
“Becoming an Irish Citizen
through marriage or civil
partnership”
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/m
oving_country/irish_citizenship/becomin
g_an_irish_citizen_through_marriage.ht
ml
See: Rules
Eithne Luibhéid
Pregnant on Arrival: Making the Illegal
Immigrant
Lecture/Discussion 2
Irish Views on Immigration
right: desirable labor migrants, Filipina nurses
Dublin Chat OnLine TV (street
interviews on immigration)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=vFqu6Qz7yHc
Independent (street interviews on
immigration)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=_WygqXTqXDs
Immigrant Welfare “Cheaters”
in Mainstream Media
RTE Video on Welfare Cheaters
(excerpted and posted to YouTube to
highlight immigrant scammers with
added dialogue boxes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
KDHE9K4O9gU
Pregnant on Arrival
Migrant Perspectives
The interviewees [migrants] overwhelmingly challenged the stereotype of
‘pregnant asylum seeker who is really an illegal immigrant’ and instead speculated
about the heterogeneous origins and varied migration experiences of women who
had been reduced to that stereotype. They pointed out migrants were generally
not illegal in the sense of lacking legal authorization for their presence but instead
were vulnerable to being made illegal as a result of both Ireland’s confusing,
exclusionary patchwork of immigration and asylum laws as well as the effects of
exclusionary laws in other EU states. In that context, interviewees suggested,
childbearing may have offered some migrants a means to negotiate multiple
difficulties and jeopardies. (56)
• Why did interviewees insist on recognizing the heterogeneous origins and varied
migration experiences of women migrants?
• What were some of those experiences? (e.g. migrants needing ‘complementary
protection,’ trafficked migrants, medical tourism, etc.)
• How did Irish and EU laws combine to produce illegal immigrants?
• How did childbearing offer a ‘means to negotiate multiple difficulties and
jeopardies?”
Immigration Bureaucracy
Asylum Process Explained
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/movin
g_country/asylum_seekers_and_refugees/th
e_asylum_process_in_ireland/
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/movin
g_country/asylum_seekers_and_refugees/se
rvices_for_asylum_seekers_in_ireland/direct
_provision.html
http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/informati
on-and-referral-service/faqs-about-asylum *
Human Trafficking in Ireland
below right: Ruth Negga plays Taiwo, an African woman trafficked to Ireland, in film Trafficked
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/trafficked see: trailer
Irish Government’s “Blue Blindfold” AntiTrafficking Website
http://www.blueblindfold.gov.ie/
See: What is it?/Case Studies
Irish Anti-Trafficking Organization website
http://www.aptireland.org/
See: Zena*
Irish Times news story on Nigerian women
trafficked into Dublin
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-andlaw/seven-victims-of-human-trafficking-foundin-dublin-1.1830346
Pregnant on Arrival
Flexible Citizenship Strategies
… reproductive rather than productive labor provided the means through
which families, spread across national borders, could potentially build a base
for long-term legal residence and various rights in Ireland. … some migrants
told me that they had travelled for those reasons, or that they knew of other
women who had done so. For example, one upper-middle-class Nigerian
woman told me that she knew women who had come to Ireland specifically
to ensure that their children would hold Irish/EU citizenship. In her view,
their actions reflected ‘responsible’ motherhood. For her, being a
responsible mother entailed creating flexible futures for one’s children …(69)
• How do migrant strategies for family reunification mirror official
immigration policies in places like Ireland and the United States?
• Why might those countries resist these strategies?
• Why do some migrants view flexible citizenship strategies like having
children in Ireland before 2005 as ‘responsible’ motherhood?
• Why would immigration authorities resist this interpretation?
Young Nigerian
mother posing with
her family and new
Irish citizenship
papers
http://www.independent.ie
/irish-news/young-nigerianmother-holds-back-tears-asshe-touches-tricolour-afterbecoming-irish-citizen31133018.html
Pregnant on Arrival
Migrant Views on “Spongers”
Migrants stressed that they sought secure legal status [including through
childbearing] not so that they could ‘sponge off’ welfare or engage in crime but as a
means for becoming productive, contributing members of Irish society while
pursuing their own hopes and plans. Like the minister [of Justice], they expressed
concern about ‘abuse’ of the migration system. From their point of view, though,
individuals’ varied modes of entry or strategies for securing legal residency were
not necessarily abusive. Indeed, like undocumented Irish migrants in the United
States, migrants viewed creative modes of entry and legalization as expected, given
the migration pressures that they faced and the tough, nontransparent, and
exclusionary nature of the immigration system. (84)
• Why do migrants stress their desire to become productive members of society?
• Why do they share official concern about welfare abuse?
• How do they justify ‘creative modes of entry and legalization?’
Africa & Ireland: Colonial Connections
below: Biafra community in Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade
upper right: Nigerian Soccer Team sponsored by Guinness (Nigeria is the
third largest market for Guinness after the UK and Ireland)
lower right: School children in Montserrat, West Indies celebrate St.
Patrick’s Day with Irish dancing.
Eithne Luibhéid
Pregnant on Arrival: Making the Illegal
Immigrant
Lecture/Discussion 3
Pregnant on Arrival
Direct Provision (NOTE: Direct provision is a privatized welfare system for
asylum seekers run by for-profit companies under government supervision)
Unlike the regular welfare system, direct provision does not seek to produce
entrepreneurial, self-governing subjects for the neo-liberal nation-state;
rather, it seeks to deter asylum seekers from arriving, and to ensure that
those who do arrive remain strictly controlled, contained, and effectively
incapacitated. In this way, asylum seekers can more readily be made illegal
and deportable after their claims are denied, as happens in the vast majority
of cases. (87)
• Why does the regular Irish welfare system seek to produce entreprenurial,
self-governing subjects?
• Why doesn’t it favor this approach for asylum seekers?
• How does direct provision deter asylum seekers from arriving?
• How does it make it easier to deport them when their claims are denied?
Direct Provision
Experiences
Aljazeera Story
on Plight of
Asylum Seekers
http://www.aljaz
eera.com/news/e
urope/2014/04/ir
eland-under-fireover-refugeetreatment20144251750205
26225.html *
Pregnant on Arrival
Disciplinary strategies for asylum seekers
Asylum seekers in direct provision have no choice about where they are sent, with
whom they live, and in most cases who shares their room or how many people
share their room. Indeed, they have no control over the very food they eat, which
consistently rate as boring, poor, and unhealthy. They receive little or no
information from staff about their rights, or asylum procedures, or available
supports in the area. Their powerlessness is constantly underlined: staff may enter
their rooms without permission, or may punish or humiliate them for perceived
infractions. They rarely get to explain their side of events. In some centers they are
required to sign out if they leave and punished if they fail to do so. … Migrant’s
powerlessness is reinforced by their poverty. Barred from working, they subsist on
19.10 euros per week … (94)
• How do the disciplinary strategies described above serve to deter and discourage
asylum seekers?
• How does the Irish government justify the direct provision system?
• What are the likely effects of direct provision on most asylum seekers, especially
those with children?
• Why is this treatment especially problematic for asylum seekers (as a category)?
Detention and Deportation
Irish news story on plight of asylum seekers in Direct Provision*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8-6ZSylCZA
Interviews with Nigerians subjected to failed 2010 deportation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38f4jCt9jbw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQx6MwFdozw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StRaj0_NWns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBXD69vqQU
Pregnant on Arrival
Racialization of asylum seekers
Direct provision institutionalizes the treatment of asylum seekers as a
separate and distinct class that has fewer rights than other classes; and it
ensures that the everyday lives and experiences of asylum seekers are very
different … and—in an era when welfare use racializes, requiring asylum
seekers to be supported at taxpayer expense while denying them the
opportunity to work—most certainly racializes the asylum seekers. …
[moreover] migration laws racialize asylum seekers by creating geopolitical
exclusions and inclusions that become mapped onto constructs of race as
visible physical difference. … Not surprisingly, asylum seekers report that
they experience high levels of racism and discrimination, not only when
compared with to Irish citizens but also relative to other migrants. (97-8)
• How does direct provision work to ‘racialize’ asylum seekers?
• What role do ‘geopolitical exclusions’ play in that process?
• How does this play out in the everyday lives and experiences of asylum
seekers?
Racialization of Asylum Seekers
Pregnant on Arrival
Race & Gender Issues
… pervasive racism, which operates through gendered, sexual, and economic logics,
perpetuates this system of disempowerment. DVAS (Domestic Violence Advocacy
Service] says that when women have raised concerns about harassment or
domestic violence with social workers, gardaí, nurses, and others, their concerns
are often dismissed using racialized logic. This logic presumes that ‘gender
inequality and domestic violence are an inherent part of African and Asian
cultures,’ … (and it is culturally inappropriate to intervene in ‘their’ culture). There
is also belief that ‘certain groups of ethnic minority women—particularly those that
wear head scarves or hijabs, are inherently submissive and passive, and culturally
not used to mixing with men, and are therefore over-sensitive when it comes to
natural male behaviour … [Thus, woman was told by a garda that] a man touching
you might be a crime in your country but it certainly isn’t here.’ (103)
• How does racism intersect with gender in the way that Irish authorities deal with
harassment and discrimination?
• How do racialized logics differ in relation to different racial/ethnic groups?
• How are these racialized logics amplified for asylum seekers in the direct
provision system?
Muslims in Ireland
African Immigrants
as Violent Criminals
Anti-Immigrant Blog
(Warning: This website is
white supremacist and
anti-Semitic)
http://incogman.net
/2012/07/violentafrican-immigrantsattacking-whites-inireland/
Pregnant on Arrival
Gender and sexuality
Engendering processes invariably normalize certain forms of sexuality while
marking other sexualities as ‘deviant’ and undesirable. Attention not only to
asylum-seeking women who are forced to navigate racialized sexual
harassment but also to LGBTQ asylum seekers specifically offers a lens for
understanding how direct provision normalizes a particular version of
heterosexuality. (104)
• What is the particular version of heterosexuality ‘normalized’ by direct
provision?
• What effect does this normalization have on LGBTQ asylum seekers?
• Why might discrimination against LGBTQ asylum seekers be considered
especially problematic?
• How does this discrimination jibe with contemporary Irish attitudes
towards same-sex marriage (which was legalized by popular vote in 2015)?
LGBTQ Migrants into Ireland
Irish LGBT Asylum Seekers NGO
http://belongto.org/belong-launches-blueprint-protecting-risk-lgbtasylum-seekers-refugees/
See video: “Seeking Sanctuary” (about an African LGBTQ asylum seeker)
Pregnant on Arrival
Asylum seeker agency and resistance
… the system’s effects are never uniform, predictable, or totalizing.
Migrants in direct provision have built ties with one another;
sometimes engaged in paid labor in the underground economy; and
taken advantage of the [volunteer] opportunities offered by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), church groups, and community
groups … Migrants in direct provision have also periodically engaged in
hunger striking, a tactic that reflects the state’s reduction of them to
bare lives that are permitted only bodily existence. (108)
• How do the migrant strategies noted above demonstrate agency?
• What are the restrictions on that agency?
• Why are hunger strikes an effective form of resistance?
Irish asylum seeker
activism
left: Asylum seekers residents at the
Montague Hotel in Portlaoise
protesting about the length of time
and the conditions in which they live
under the direct provision system.
Pregnant on Arrival
Cooperation as agency (Christabel)
Within the confines of direct provision and welfare, [Christabel] not only
grasped the modalities of being that were proposed but … by learning and
engaging in the practices that the Irish government prescribed for asylum
seekers and long-term residents, she sought to resignify herself away from
an image of sponger, user, and dependent, and toward the image of a
responsible, trustworthy, active member of society. Her efforts clearly show
that direct provision practices are not only technologies for organizing and
distributing material resources … but also technologies for refashioning the
self. (112)
• How did Christabel ‘resignify’ herself by learning and engaging in approved
practices?
• How did she demonstrate this to government officials (and to her
interviewer)?
• How does this strategy reinforce negative attitudes towards most asylum
seekers?
Volunteer Work for Migrants
http://www.slideshare.net/AgaVolunteer/give-project-presentationvolunteering-in-ireland-for-migrants
Pregnant on Arrival
Nation-Building and Female Sexuality in Catholic Ireland
[After independence] the overwhelming push to define Ireland as ‘notEngland’ lead to a search for distinguishing markers of identity, of which
women’s reproductive sexuality became key. The 1937 constitution
constructed women and mothers and child-bearers located within the
private home. Women’s dedication to reproducing the next generation of
Irish people became elevated as a symbol of Ireland’s moral and cultural
distinctiveness over the former colonial master, Britain. This symbolism
intertwined with the direct regulation of women’s sexuality, not only by
channeling it into childbearing within marriage but also banning abortion
and the sale of contraceptives. (127)
• Why did Irish leaders seek ‘distinguishing markers of identity’ for their
newly independent country?
• Why was women’s reproductive sexuality key to Irish identity?
• Why did control of women’s sexuality include banning abortion and the
sale of contraceptives?
Irish Catholic Sex Education 1980s
2015 Daily Edge Article (critical):
http://www.dailyedge.ie/sex-ad-video-catholic-irish-2523908-Dec2015/ (see video)
Youtube link to sex ed video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2848394835&feature=iv&src_vid=PUMTOTa7J00&v=cxgX
WHo9jvI
Pregnant on Arrival
Irish Law and the “Abortion Trail”
X Case (1992): “a fourteen-year-old Irish girl, pregnant through rape,
whose parents brought her to Britain for an abortion.” (p. 130)
• What was the Attorney General’s initial ruling in this case? Why?
• Why did the Supreme Court reconsider?
• What was the outcome?
Pregnant on Arrival
C Case (1997): “a thirteen-year-old Traveller, who, like X, sought an
abortion after she had been raped and made pregnant.” (133)
• What was the District Court’s initial ruling in this case?
• Why did the High Court uphold the ruling?
• How did this case resemble the X case? How was it different?
C Case revisited
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/ccase-mum-i-grieve-formy-lost-baby-every-day-29241584.html
Overview of Abortion Issues in Ireland
http://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-and-abortion-the-facts-424165Apr2012/
Travellers in Ireland
below: Traveller children in 1958 photo
right: Traveller children at the Appleby Horse Fair
Travellers in Ireland
Three members of the Rathkeale Rovers Gang convicted of selling stolen rhino horns for Chinese market in 2012
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/rathkeale-rovers-irish-traveller-gang-rhino-horn-chinese-artefact-theft
Pregnant on Arrival
Right to Life for Immigrant Babies
Baby O Case (2002): “Ms. O’s solicitors sought to prevent her
deportation by invoking the state’s commitment to ‘defend and
vindicate the right to life of the unborn.” (p. 135)
• How did Ms. O’s solicitors present their argument on behalf of the
unborn child? Why?
• How did the state, High Court, and Supreme Court respond to that
argument?
• What was the outcome of the case?
• How does this case related to the X and C cases noted previously?
Eithne Luibhéid
Pregnant on Arrival: Making the Illegal
Immigrant
Lecture/Discussion 4
Important Rulings on Birthright Citizenship (and Abortion Travel)
1990
Fajujonu Case (Supreme Court decision) grants residency to parents of Irish citizen
children
(1992) X case (Supreme Court decision) allows minor rape victim to travel to UK for an
abortion because she is suicidal
(1997) C case (Supreme Court decision) allows minor rape victim from Traveller family to
travel to UK for an abortion because she is suicidal
2002 Baby O case (Supreme Court decision) denies citizenship rights to unborn child and
custodial rights to parents
2003 Lobe & Osayande Case (Supreme Court decision) refuses parents of Irish citizen
whose children were born while their cases were pending the right to remain in
Ireland
2004 Citizenship Referendum (popular vote) ends unconditional birthright
citizenship for children born in Ireland to non-citizen parents
2005 IBC/05 ruling (administrative scheme) decides residency of asylum seeker
parents with citizen children on case by case basis
2011 Zambrano case (European Court of Justice ruling) allows residency for non-citizen
parents of EU citizens (including in Ireland) of citizen children
Pregnant on Arrival
Citizenship Referendum
In March 2004, the minister for justice announced that voters would be
asked to amend the constitution by removing the automatic entitlement to
citizenship for any child born in Ireland, north or south. Newborn children
who did not have at least one parent who was an Irish citizen, who was
entitled to Irish citizenship, or who had resided legally in Ireland for three of
the last four years would no longer acquire citizenship at birth. … Migrants
were targeted because ‘there has been no significant diminution in the
numbers of non-nationals arriving heavily pregnant. (149)
• Who’s right to Irish citizenship was recognized in the citizenship
referendum?
• Why did the referendum include an offer of citizenship to some migrant
children and not others?
• Which migrants were mostly likely to have citizenship denied to their
children? Why?
2004
Citizenship
Referendum
(Vote Yes)
2004 Citizenship Referendum (Vote No)
Center image: Minister of Justice Michael McDowell with paper
airplane captioned “Constitution of Ireland” and African baby
Pregnant on Arrival
Migrant Families in Limbo (IBC/05 scheme)
On January 15, 2005 … the Department of Justice announced a new scheme
whereby migrant parents of Irish children who were born before January 1,
2005, could apply for residency. … Eligibility depended on several conditions,
the most important of which were ‘not to become involved in criminal
activity; to make every effort to become economically viable; to take steps
that would lead to employment; and to accept that the status did not ‘confer
any entitlement or legitimate expectation of family reunification. (177)
• What was the purpose behind the Irish government’s eligibility
requirements?
• Why was meeting these requirements especially difficult for asylum
seekers (as opposed to other migrants)?
• Why was the governments’ insistence that migrants accept that residency
status did not confer any entitlement or legitimate expectation of family
reunification a special hardship, especially for asylum seekers?
Asylum Seekers in Limbo
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/lives-in-limbo*
Families in
Limbo (2013)
right: family in direct
provision
below: children in
direct provision
Pregnant on Arrival
Protecting Future Generations
The controversies over pregnant migrants … foreground the fact that states seek to
govern reproduction in ways that, over time, maintain differentiations between
citizens and noncitizens that correlates with inequitable access to resources and
opportunities. Indeed, the Irish government claimed that migrant women’s
childbearing threatened the state’s ability to produce a desirable future for
‘properly’ Irish citizens in part because the births offered a means to steadily erase
the distinction, thereby opening the door to expanding claims on resources that are
normally reserved for citizens. By withholding automatic citizenship from migrants’
children … the referendum promised to restabilize the citizen/migrant distinction
and its associated inequalities. (150)
• Why do states seek to govern reproduction in ways that distinguish between
citizens and noncitizens, especially with regard to resources?
• Why did the Irish government create a competing futures narrative about
pregnant migrants undermining the future of ‘legitimate’ Irish people?
• How did the referendum offer an opportunity to restabilize the citizen/migrant
distinction?
• What are the implications of this strategy for Irish immigration policies? For
migrants in general? For asylum seekers in particular?
Our World Irish Aid Awards
http://ourworldirishaidawards.ie/
Pregnant on Arrival
Mixed Messages: Citizenship for Descendants of Irish Migrants
The referendum did not just produce and institutionalize a distinction between the
children of productive, hardworking, long-term labor migration versus the children
of other migrants … [it] also institutionalized distinctions by allowing children and
grandchildren born abroad to Irish citizens to continue to acquire citizenship
through descent, even when they had never set foot in Ireland. These children and
grandchildren, however, were eligible for citizenship only if they could trace their
descent through heteronormative rather than queer forms of family.
• Why did the referendum continue to encourage the children and grandchildren of
migrant Irish citizens to claim Irish citizenship?
• Why did it restrict descent citizenship to the offspring of heteronormative forms
of family”
• What seems hypocritical about this ‘exception’ for descendants?
• What are the reasons for this apparent hypocrisy?
Irish Citizenship Through Descent
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/irish_citizenship/irish_citizenship_through_birth_or_descent.html
Celebrity Irish-Americans
below: Muhammed Ali visits Ennis, Ireland birthplace of his great-grandfather (2009)
below right: Tom Cruise receives certificate of Irish heritage
U.S. Presidents with Irish Ancestors
Note: Post-WW II presidents with Scotch-Irish Heritage Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
below right: Barack Obama with Irish ancestor Fulmoth Kearney
Pregnant on Arrival
Race matters
The minister for justice and the government consistently insisted that the
referendum was not racist; on the contrary, they argued that it would prevent
racism by ensuring that only those who properly followed immigration and asylum
rules were rewarded. These claims conveniently ignore that the state regularly
changes the rules, often without migrants being informed; underplays the
pervasiveness and functioning of racism; and blames migrants for racism in Ireland.
A related government strategy entailed portraying the referendum as a simple,
commonsense measure that did not require intensive deliberation and debate.
(170)
• Why did government officials think the referendum would prevent racism?
• How did this argument ignore the pervasiveness and functioning of racism?
• How did it blame migrants?
• How did the government (successfully) persuade most voters that the
referendum was a ‘simple, commonsense measure?’
‘
Institutional Racism in Direct Provision
Pregnant on Arrival
Sham marriages
For the government … marriages that are viewed as having been entered
into primarily or completely for purposes of gaining legal migration status
(called ‘sham marriages’) cause great concern. Officials suggest that these
marriages are not entered into in the right spirit or with the right
intentions—which underlines that marriages are normatively expected to
entail particular kinds of feelings, intentions, and aspirations that are
expected to have been used to create racial, cultural, and geopolitical
distinctions. But in this instance, they have become a basis to produce and
circulate constructions of migrant illegality … (182-3)
• Why are government officials so concerned about ‘sham’ marriages?
• How does this official concern impact normative expectations for
marriage?
• How have normative expectations of ‘proper’ marriage been used to create
racial, cultural, and geopolitical distinctions?
• How is it used to construct migrant illegality?
Policing Sham Marriage
Article on a “sham marriage” criminal gang operation in Ireland that paired south Asian men (many of
them Muslim) with Eastern European and Portuguese women with EU citizenship. Some of the women
may have been trafficked.
http://www.thejournal.ie/sham-marriage-arrests-2465833-Nov2015/
http://www.thejournal.ie/sham-marriages-3020346-Oct2016/
Police (Garda) Report on Operation Vantage
https://www.garda.ie/en/About-Us/Our-Departments/Office-of-Corporate-Communications/PressReleases/2015/November/Operation-Vantage-Investigation-into-Sham-Marriages-and-ImmigrationIssues.html
“New legislation - the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 - enacted on the 18th August 2015
provides new powers to a Registrar of Marriages to consider whether a marriage is one of
convenience, i.e. a marriage where at least one of the parties to the marriage is at the time of entry
into the marriage is a foreign national, and enters into the marriage solely for the purpose of securing
an immigration advantage for at least one of the parties to the marriage. As a result of this legislation
55 formal objections to pending marriages have been made through Operation Vantage and 22 people
have been arrested and charged for offences under Section 69(3) of the Civil Registration Act 2004 –
provision of false information to the Registrar – and Section 29 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud
Offences) Act 2001 – custody or control of a false instrument.”
Pregnant on Arrival
Same-Sex Relations and Immigration Control
The centrality of heterosexual marriage as a model for migration control has
deeply affected those in same-sex relationships. Historically, same-sex
relationships were not recognized as a basis for legal migration. … This
situation dovetailed with a history of casting lesbianism or gayness as ‘unIrish,’ including in ways that generated significant migration from Ireland by
lesbian and gay citizens. Yet lesbian and gay citizens’ status began to change,
as reflected by the decriminalization of homosexuality (1993), the passage of
the Employment Equality Act (1998) and Equal Status Act (2000), the
establishment of the Equality Authority (2000), and, most recently, the
passage of the Civil Partnership Act (2010)[and the passage of a national
referendum allowing same-sex marriage (2015)]. (185)
• Why were lesbians and gays historically seen as “un-Irish?”
• Why did Irish attitudes towards lesbians and gays change so quickly?
• How do the intersections of race/ethnicity, class, and national orientation
influence Irish attitudes towards lesbians and gays?
• How can we reconcile these progressive attitudes towards lesbians and
gays with increasing concerns about illegal migrants and asylum seekers?
Same-Sex Marriage and Immigration
Immigration Situation for
Same-Sex Partners in Civil
Unions in Ireland
http://www.inis.gov.ie/en
/INIS/Pages/Civil%20Part
nership
All You
Need is
Love
Reproductive
Rights
2018 NYT article:
“Ireland votes to End
Abortion Ban in
Rebuke to Catholic
Conservatism”
https://www.nytimes.c
om/2018/05/26/world
/europe/irelandabortion-yes.html
Right: A mural in
Dublin of Savita
Halappanavar, who
died in 2012 of
complications from a
miscarriage after a
hospital rejected a
request for an
abortion.
Pregnant on Arrival
Citizenship and Durable Inequalities
The inequalities associated with citizenship statuses are rooted in histories of
colonialism, global capitalism, and the nation-state system … Citizenship
status in global northern states have crucial ‘wealth-preserving’ functions
that perpetuate these inequalities. Moreover, since citizenship status
designates who is subject to the violence of immigration control and who is
not, it further perpetuates these inequalities. Yet the ways that states
naturalize the link between being born and the acquisition of citizenship
status has insulated these inequalities from critical scrutiny … immigration
controls entail not just spatial dimensions (protecting the borders) but also a
temporal dimensions (protecting the future) … (173)
• How does global north citizenship status perpetuate historical inequalities?
• How does immigration control further perpetuate these inequalities?
• How does it “naturalize’ them?
• What are the implications of immigration controls’ spatial and temporal
dimensions?
Amrita Pande
Wombs in Labor: Transnational Surrogacy in India
Lecture/Discussion 1
India
7th largest country by area
2nd most populous country: 1.271 billion (2015)
50% population below age 25
80% Hindu, 13.5% Muslim
33% less than $1.25 a day
80% literacy rate
sex ratio 1000 men to 933 women
India after 1500
Mughal Empire (1524-1737)
Muslim rulers
Northern and Central India
Maratha Empire (1674-1818)
Hindu rulers
Central and Southern India
British East India Company (1757-1857)
1857 Indian Rebellion
British Raj (Empire) (1858-1947)
Independent India (1947 to present)
Partition of India and Pakistan (1947)
Secession of Bangladesh (1971)
Right: Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi
Hindu Nationalism:
Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party)
below left: Prime Minister Narendra Modi (since 2014)
below left: Pop singer Smita’s BJP album cover
video for title track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmkrP34fJv0
Wombs in Labor
Surrogacy in the Media (in India and outside)
Pick up the right issue of the Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, New York Times, Marie
Claire, or even better, switch to the right television channel, and you will get an update on
surrogacy in India. An Oprah Winfrey segment on surrogacy clinics in India spread the news
so effectively that it increased some clinics’ international clientele exponentially. Invariably
these media reports on surrogacy start with a description of the crowded streets, the filth,
and the pigs going through the trash outside the clinic, and then move on to the swollen
stomachs of these enterprising-though-illiterate Indian women and to their life stories
filled with drunken husbands and desperate poverty. The reporters note the not
insignificant cost difference of surrogacy … Indian women in these journalistic accounts are
almost uniformly portrayed as grateful recipients of the opportunity to serve as surrogates
and earn more money that they would earn in more than ten years. The cameras give us a
close-up of a shy smile on the face of the surrogate, a wider smile on the doctor’s face, and
a final shot of the beaming California mother holding her chubby newborn. (4-5)
• Why are the media so fascinated with transnational surrogacy?
• How do their portrayals reinforce Western stereotypes about India? About Indian
women?
• How do they frame the story of transnational surrogacy?
• What is left out of that framing?
Surrogacy
Surrogacy Laws around the World
Dark Blue: Both gainful and altruistic forms are legal; Medium Blue: No legal regulation; Light Blue: Only altruistic is legal; Light
Purple: Allowed between relatives up to second degree of consanguinity; Red: Banned; Gray: Unregulated/uncertain situation
Surrogacy as a Transnational Business
https://www.surrogacyindiadelhi.com/
See: Surrogacy>Surrogacy Process
http://surrogacycentreindia.com/ *
See: Blogs and Testimonials
http://ivf-surrogate.com/ *
(This is the clinic where Pande did her
research; upper right: Dr. Patel, lower right:
Akanksha Hospital)
Surrogacy as a Transnational Business
Oprah Winfrey segment on “Wombs
for Rent” (right)
http://www.oprah.com/world/wombsfor-rent
BBC article on surrogacy (sympathetic)
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine24275373
Family Blog about Surrogacy
Experience
http://ourjourneytosurrogacyinindia.bl
ogspot.com/
Surrogacy on the Web
Youtube news video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKLTldbV8PA (NBC story on Indian surrogacy)*
Youtube surrogacy promotion videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqZb3mT5Tqs (Indian surrogacy promotion short)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM4UkTp7_lM (Dr. Patel defends surrogacy)*
Youtube exposés of surrogacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUN2_sy3wtA (Innocent Casualties of Surrogacy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__72FpOaJPg (Australian documentary on
surrogacy in Thailand)
Russian Documentary on Surrogacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSXZSdMmRdg
Be sure to watch the entire video (if you miss it in class). Pay special
attention to:
1) Perspective of prospective mothers
2) Perspective of surrogates and their families
3) Perspective of medical practitioners
4) Issues of stigma and stigma management
5) Disciplinary strategies of surrogacy clinics and hostels
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