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Master Thesis

Research Master’s in Urban Studies Thesis Supervisor: Dr. W. J. Nicholls Second Reader: Dr. M.J.M. Maussen

Undocumented, Not Invisible

A study of undocumented immigrant mobilizations in New York City and the

Amsterdam Region

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Geography and Planning. I felt like fish out of water. I missed the theoretical depth that had fed my sociological imagination for all those years. I started thinking, very seriously, that I had chosen wrong. Then I met Prof. Dr. Jan Rath, with whom I felt comfortable enough to ask for advice. I had to choose a research apprenticeship for the 2nd semester but none of the options seemed right. Jan asked me, as if it was that simple, who I’d like to work with. “Walter,” after all, it was his urban sociology class that had made me fall in love with the discipline.

Walter’s supervision went beyond what I could have expected. The amazing world of urban social movements, politics, immigration and unpretentious writing that he introduced me to built the foundation of this thesis. He inspired me and pushed me way out of my comfort zone, always more confident than I ever was that everything would be okay. I don’t believe I have ever learned so much from a single person in my adult life. Thank you, Walter.

I am so thankful to Jan, who, aside from encouraging me to contact Walter, introduced me to Prof. Dr. Phil Kasinitz from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center who invited me to spend my semester abroad at his department as a visiting research scholar. This thesis would not have been what it is had I gone to another institution in that incredible city.

To my respondents, who allowed me to take a scrutinizing look at their worlds, I am forever indebted to each of you. I have done my very best to do justice to your stories of human struggle for justice and hope to be able to continue to tell them in publications to come so that your strong voices can be heard a thousand times.

I would like to thank my parents, Agnes and Fábio, for the love, wise words, respect, and support (in more ways than one) that have made the past two years possible. I would like to thank my partner Annis for the constant reassurance, for the amazing adventure in Brooklyn with our two cats, and for filling me with optimism during some of the harshest moments of this thesis by asking me to be his wife. My sisters, Nat and Ju, my rocks through everything, thank you. My baby sister Khadija, my niece Luiza: your existence in the world motivates me to be a strong, educated woman that you can look up to one day. I had so many great ones myself.

Finally, I could not be more humbled by the trust that the Vreedefonds put in me and my research project, aiding me with financing my studies at CUNY. Thank you, I have no words to express what that meant to me. You made me feel like the work I do is worthwhile.

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New York City and Amsterdam are hubs for international migration. The three undocumented immigrant mobilizations studied in this thesis manifest the tensions that still exist in immigrant-receiving societies with regards to policy. The relationship between cities and movements is well documented in the literature. This thesis aimed at testing the latter relationship by asking: “To what extent is the urban environment a sufficient condition for facilitating the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants in New York City and the Amsterdam region?” The main method used in this research was a series of 35

qualitative semi-structured interviews with activists, politicians and professionals involved in the three movements.

Literature on city-movement relationship points to cities as spaces where clusters of individuals form, and social movements can build networks between actors with differentiated skills that benefit common goals. Social Movement Organizations (SMOs) can be differentiated between professional and informal, defining how they mobilize: the former focuses on lobbying; the latter on grassroots innovative protests. Professionalization in SMOs is thought to transform them into top-down operations that begin to reproduce the status quo. When informal and formal SMOs work together, radical-flank effect can benefit both by making tamer SMOs seem like better negotiation partners to decision-makers while still maintaining innovation in the movement. The assumption is that cities particularly favor resource-poor, unstructured grassroots SMOs.

New York City Dreamers (NYD), who migrated to the US as children, have lived their lives without papers. The failure of a federal bill shifted the movement’s focus towards local-level organizing. The SMOs that make up the movement are a hybrid of professional and informal. They combine resources from the former with innovations from the latter, but the network has internal conflicts regarding the perceived inauthenticity of professionals and disobedience of ‘informals’. Radical-flank effect is present, but under-utilized. Kinderpardon (KP) is a law that granted asylum seeking children legal stay in the Netherlands. Childhood asylum became a social problem in an unlikely setting: a

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center-professionalized and institutionalized. They organized in a top-down manner but used grassroots-inspired methods. Wij Zijn Hier (WZH) is a group of adult rejected refugees who occupied multiple public and private spaces in Amsterdam in search of visibility and have organized almost entirely at a very grassroots capacity, surviving ultimately due to their individual allies and geographic location.

Taken together, the three mobilizations show that the city appears to play a role in the uprisings of highly marginalized actors, but that it is not sufficient to maintain active mobilization. The NYD and WZH cases show the city is sooner a necessary condition for very marginalized actors to mobilize. Without politicization and resources, urban movements such as WZH can turn into service-providing actions. Moreover, when the mobilization of the effected is not necessary because they are represented by powerful SMOs, the city is of no relevance at all.

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I. Introduction………...1-5 II. Theoretical Framework

1.1 The importance of the Urban Environment………...6-8 1.2 Modes of Organization………...8-12 1.3 Framing Legitimate Struggle & Seizing Political Opportunities……….13-17 III. Research Design

3.1 Research Question……….18 3.2 Case Selection………18-20 3.3 Methodology………..21-24 3.3.1 Methods & Sampling

3.3.2 Respondent Selection & Access

3.4 Limitations……….25 IV. Case Descriptions

3.5 New York Dreamers………..26-29 3.6 Kinderpardon……….30-32 3.7 Wij Zijn Hier……….33-35 V. Findings

5.1 New York Dreamers………..36-50 5.2 Kinderpardon……….51-63 5.3 Wij Zijn Hier………..64-74 VI. Cross-case Discussion & Conclusion...57-62

VII. References………...63-64

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I.

INTRODUCTION

The cities of New York and Amsterdam, each with a foreign-born population making up approximately one third of the total, are essentially immigration hubs within their respective national contexts (Rath et al, 2014). Both of these cities represent spaces where immigration policy and the tensions between different actors affected by, and concerned with, it manifest themselves. This thesis focuses on mobilizations of undocumented immigrants that arise in and around cities like New York and Amsterdam. At times momentary and oftentimes sustained, these waves of contention ascend at differing geographic scales and take shape according to their institutional environments and internal organizational capacities. Whether a mobilization is made up of mainly formal or informal organizations, whether it stays at the local level or scales up country-wide and how these marginalized political actors manage to create a space for contestation are central themes of the present study. The three-case comparison undertaken in this research explores on the nuances between these different conditions.

Undocumented migration has long been a politicized issue for immigrant-receiving societies. In the United States, a country historically made up of immigrant settlers, undocumented migration has been one of the most prominent topics in political discourse and policy-making since at least the 1980s (Massey, 2007). The country’s migration past is often romanticized, while the predominantly Latino post-1965 immigration is postulated primarily as a threat (Chavez, 2008). For the Netherlands, its status as an ‘immigrant-receiving society’ is still rather uneasy and, as a result, problematizing non-Western migration has been high on the political agenda since the 1990s (van der Leun & Kloosterman, 2005).

In recent years, the Netherlands and the United States have both seen somewhat unexpected uprisings of undocumented immigrants demanding visibility and [human] rights.

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Cities such as New York and Amsterdam have numerous immigrant community and service organizations, as well as urban-dwelling sympathizers of immigrant rights issues. A relationship between cities and social movements, conceptualized as result of the clustering of organizations, affected populations and allies into relatively contained areas, has been documented in the literature and is nothing short of fascinating. The present thesis set out to better understand the latter relationship for this recent wave of undocumented immigrant rights movements, by asking:

“To what extent is the urban environment a sufficient condition for facilitating the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants in New York City and the Amsterdam region?”

In looking at whether the city serves as a ‘sufficient condition’ for the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants, this thesis simultaneously inquires about the circumstances where the city plays little to no role in actively mobilizing undocumented immigrants. It is evident that cities, with their landmarks and public spaces, lend themselves as stages for the dramaturgy of collective action such as protests and marches. But it is the diversity of its residents and economic activities, the specialized skills that residents possess and having all of it in such dense areas that foster something of a breeding ground for collective contention (Nicholls & Beaumont, 2004; Nicholls, 2008).

Marginalized actors such as undocumented immigrants, who have no obvious point of entry to the formal political system, can rely on building networks with other actors and using these bridges to attain some of their political goals. Powerful allies and networks that include influential organizations and institutions can very well define the success of a movement. Cities are one of the places where such alliances can be formed.

The first case study takes place in New York City, where undocumented immigrant youth that arrived in the United States as children have been mobilizing for years – to some degree

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since the early 2000s – to demand structural legal changes that would make their lives as adults possible in the country where they grew up. The social movement that the New York undocumented youth are a part of is spread across the United States and is known for having blown new life into the American immigrant rights movement (Nicholls, 2013). The bill that sparked youth participation in protesting the immigration system, known at the DREAM Act, aimed at legalizing the status of this category of immigrants, failed to pass in 2010. Since then, local ‘Dreamer’ organizations – including the ones active in New York – have been working to pass regional bills that could provide more opportunities to these communities.

Dreamers, many of whom are college students or graduates, are often idealized as high-achieving ‘quasi-Americans’. Having been educated within the American system, Dreamers are sophisticated activists who are largely self-organized and adopt a strong bottom-up base of community mobilization as part of their philosophy. As such, they make extensive use of narrative and individual biographies to gain support for their movement goals. While the federal DREAM Act was never made into law, the movement has booked some successes. Those who would have benefitted under the DREAM Act can now apply for a temporary, two-year working permit that also keeps them safe from deportation. Even though some political goals were met, the movement continues to actively organize, educate and politicize the undocumented youth of New York City to drive more immigrant-friendly policies at the state level.

The second case, situated in the Netherlands, is, at face-value, rather similar to the Dreamers. Much like their American counterparts, the childhood arrival asylum seekers who were provided legal status under the Kinderpardon gained public support once their unique condition of ‘statelessness’ became known. The amount of years spent in the asylum legal limbo relative to years of age, fluency of the Dutch language and rootedness in what may be considered

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a stereotypical Dutch life were great drivers of such support (Versteegt & Maussen, 2012). Unlike their New Yorker counterparts, however, the movement behind the Kinderpardon was dispersed throughout the Netherlands, and made up of very few and highly institutionalized actors. Driven by professional NGOs and negotiated in political deals, as much as the

Kinderpardon made for a well-publicized and vibrant cause, the movement had a decidedly

top-down approach for the most part. This, coupled with the dispersion of ‘the affected’ throughout the country, was not particularly conducive for the participation of the youths in the movement as ‘speaking partners’.

The third case presented in this thesis is the Wij Zijn Hier movement of rejected adult refugees who gained a lot of traction by occupying public space in the city of Amsterdam, in a highly mediatized spectacle. The group has been living in different locations throughout the city of Amsterdam since its beginnings, surviving largely on account of the support that they have received from local Amsterdammers and to a certain degree, the municipality. Wij Zijn Hier lends itself as a suitable test case, in the Netherlands, for exploring the hypothesis that there might be a relationship between the urban environment and undocumented immigrant mobilizations. The movement is informally organized and made up of very distinct actors. Unlike the Kinderpardon, the refugees are part of the decision-making in the movement and are considered to be largely self-organized. The organization is flat, diversified and extremely grassroots.

Looking at all three cases, individually and then collectively, the differences between them become more nuanced. It is a shift away from looking at a dichotomous ideal type of ‘bottom-up’ versus ‘top-down’ organizing of social movements as static and focusing instead on subtle and at times fluid differences and similarities between the organizational logics of the

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movements under study. This comparison further contrasts mobilizations made up of national and at times international organizations, and those that consist primarily of urban-based networks. This thesis speaks to theory on the role of cities for social movement organizations in the realm of geographies of contention, as well as classic social movement theory on resource mobilization and organization. It aims at providing better understanding of the role of different factors – geographical, sociological, and organizational – in the continuum between success and failure of undocumented immigrant rights mobilizations in immigrant-receiving societies.

The next chapter introduces the existing debates from social movement theory that can contribute to deeper understanding of the three movements studied in this thesis, evaluating at the same time the questions left unanswered by theory. Chapter three sketches out the research design and methodology utilized. In chapter four, detailed background information on the individual cases is introduced. In chapter five, the findings of the study will be presented and analyzed, in accordance with the framework outlined in chapter two. Finally, in the concluding chapter, the research question will be answered with a cross-case comparison of the main findings using the analytical framework, along with suggestions for further scientific inquiry into this topic.

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II.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 The importance of the urban environment

Much has been written about the strategic role of cities to social movements. Nicholls and Beaumont (2004) discuss the connection between the urban environment and the upsurge of social movements by drawing attention to cities as places where mobilizations for social justice are both spontaneously generated and meticulously organized. Cities have “a particular spatial

structure composed of institutions, mechanisms and norms that govern the practices of those that it embeds; and [are] a site where certain aspects of multiscaled activities (economics, politics, culture) become institutionally fixed” (Nicholls & Beaumont, 2004: 110). In other words, they

are the smaller places where mechanisms of diversity, varied economic activity, urban-specific culture and politics become manifest.

In a 2008 article, Nicholls further points to how “the complexity of large urban systems

and geographic proximity and stability” (pp.656) of place are responsible for increasing the

probability of forging connections between groups with crucial and specialized resources that can advance collective, mutually-beneficial goals. The latter process is also known as ‘movement amplification’ (Nicholls, forthcoming) and it illustrates the importance of forging diversified collaborative networks for movements to flourish. Unlike wider-spread movements, it is argued that urban social movements specifically foster both strong and weak ties, due to the dense concentration of diverse groups and individuals in cities at any one time, as well as a general culture of tolerance and inclusiveness that tends to reign in places where identities are multiple (Nicholls, 2008; 2009).

Both strong and weak ties within a network are necessary aspects of an effective social movement and the centrality of networks in forging such ties cannot be undermined (Ibidem).

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Strong ties represent shared norms, trust, emotions and interpretive frameworks (Ibidem) and are important assets for movements to have, as they guarantee a solid base of risk-takers (Van Laer & Van Aelst, 2010) who fully stand behind movement goals. Strong ties also help movements come into contact with groups that have specialized resources and are willing to share them due to the strength of their bond. Weak ties, on the other hand, help trickle resources down to a larger number of diversified actors of a network in order to collectively tackle a common problem, creating interdependencies that strengthen the network as a whole.

These dense networks of varying strength between its links are, in turn, most likely to occur within geographies where diversity is sufficiently present and the population of ‘the affected’ as well as their open-minded (potential) allies is sufficiently large. It could be argued that not all cities lend themselves to this description, although both ‘world cities’ in this thesis certainly fit the bill. Alliances created through urban networks at the same time imply a certain reciprocity, which serves to ‘bulk-up’ events whereby ideally groups will participate in each other’s actions in solidarity, creating greater visibility for shared causes (Nicholls, 2008; 2009).

Having physical, symbolically important locales of contestation as well as the possibility of linking up with like-minded groups and individuals who can exchange ideas and politicize new members and allies in the process are undeniable advantages of the urban context for the upsurge of active social movements. Two of the three cases presented in this thesis are urban-based, even if their immigration-related grievances are ultimately national-level social problems. One of them is undeniably national. The variance between the three cases in question will serve to empirically assess the relationship between cities and social movements.

While cities certainly appear to matter and to play a decisive role in mobilizations, as facilitators of networking and resource-pooling between resource-poor organizations and

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individuals, mobilizations are often also made up of national organizations that exceed the boundaries of cities. While the literature covered so far discusses organizations that are rooted in cities, it tells us less about how these national organizations operate and contribute to movements in their own right. The following section of this chapter will further explore the types of social movement organizations – from grassroots to top-down – that tend to arise at different stages of mobilization and under different context-specific circumstances, offering further insights to the conditions under which the city can affect mobilizations.

2.2 Modes of organization

Social Movement Organization literature provides insights that allow for deeper understanding of the distinctions between urban-based and dispersed movements, advancing the discussion on the types of organizations that exist and arise in each setting and the networks that they form. In order to understand the logics of Social Movement Organization (SMOs, henceforth) landscapes, Straggenborg (1988) differentiates between two types: (1) professional organizations, where decision-making is procedural and occurs through a fixed hierarchy, whereby leaders are paid career activists, leadership style is somewhat fixed and members are not only made up of those affected by a cause but also good-doing individuals and organizations that feel morally compelled to contribute to the cause; and (2) informal organizations, where decision-making and roles are far more ad hoc, membership is largely volunteer-based and made up of the affected individuals and communities, whereby chapters of the organization tend to be autonomous and processes tend to change with new leadership.

Straggenborg (1988) highlights that this harsh division between formalized and informal SMOs is an ideal type and that most organizations have aspects of both – in particular, as informal organizations that become formalized usually take small steps in that direction over

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time. These ideal types proved useful for interpreting the types of organizations found in the field in each of the three cases, especially as they seem to form a progression from full-fledged professionalized to highly informal and unstructured.

The so-called ‘iron law of oligarchy’ dictates that with increasing professionalization of SMOs over time, internal bureaucratization and rationalization take over. Eventually, "[…]

social change organizations become dominated by oligarchical leaders who chart a cautious and conservative course to ensure organizational survival, minimize elite opposition, and maximize their career chances inside and outside the organization" (Kleidman, 1994: 258). SMOs – and

not only their leaders – too, are said to become increasingly diluted and conservative, no longer fighting the status quo so much as reproducing it (Zald & Ash, 1966).

In the New York and the Wij Zijn Hier cases, the latter issue proved particularly salient as grassroots organizations pointed fingers at the most institutionalized SMOs for not being sufficiently willing to take risks. It is, however, questionable whether growing institutionalization and bureaucratization necessarily lead to ‘conservatism’ as such (paraphrased from Zald & Ash, 1966). Informal grassroots organizations may morph into professional organizations for reasons other than ideological shifts and still maintain a posture that is in line with the organization’s original views, if more capable of attaining goals from a position of relative power.

Once formalized, organizations are believed to start to have a more institutional approach to mobilization, focusing sooner on lobbying legislators than protesting from the outside, simply because they have the ongoing resources and capacity to do so – i.e. paid staff (Staggenborg, 1988). Staggenborg's (1988) study of pro-choice movements in the United States showed that it was also possible for informal organizations to engage in lobbying and other forms of

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institutionalized politics, but that their lack of resources meant they often did not rely on these practices as their primary approach. The opposite is also true: disruptive tactics such as publicly speaking out on issues and experiences, if initiated by formalized organizations, are likely to lack the spontaneity and authenticity of those same tactics when they are applied by informal organizations (Ibidem).

The issue at hand is perhaps that having a rigid internal division of labor and organizational strategy that maximizes human capital and resources is only really possible for formal SMOs. Informal SMOs struggle to keep participation from volunteers high, all the while formalized organizations that have capacity on staff manage to keep issues afloat and are often treated as more legitimate by funders (Staggenborg, 1988). In other words, the relationship between bureaucratization and formalization may sooner be due to the fact that the organizations that can actually afford to hire professionals are those that have formal structures somewhat in place, and know how to attain resources that require a professionalized and structured approach (Ibidem).

Yet SMOs with differing levels of formalization, and thus different strengths, could benefit from collaboration. For instance, McAdam and colleagues (1996) claim the resilience of social movements is highly dependent on the successful use of, on the one hand, ‘disruptive

tactics’ such as sit-ins and protests, which are the most readily available tool of influence for

SMOs – in the absence of ample resources for e.g. lobbying ; and, on the other hand, ‘radical

flank effects’, which can be roughly summarized as having a radical wing to the movement that

is willing to take high risks and make extreme demands, making the moderate wing of the movement seem more legitimate and like a better negotiation partner.

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The latter means that formalized SMOs will often capitalize on efforts by informal organizations that put issues on the broader societal agenda but are not necessarily taken very seriously. This, in turn, further encourages a progression into bureaucratization (Staggenborg, 1988) by at least some parts of any given movement that, in being seen as adequate negotiation partners, become further removed from grassroots groups and their tactics. They are rewarded for their conformist approach. It is arguable that if movement organizations see themselves as parts of a single ecosystem, then differences in approach do not need to be seen as problematic and can be rather complementary for furthering collective, if somewhat compromised, goals. The idea that internal organizational logics can affect how SMOs mobilize is very pertinent to understanding the complexity of SMO landscapes in all three cases, looking at them as a continuum as opposed to dichotomous opposites that are normatively ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

The visible differences between grassroots and top-down mobilizing strategies for SMOs, in the context of having a position of relative power with regards to formal politics, bring us back to the issue of cities. If urban environments are conducive to the uprisings of the marginalized, due to an agglomeration of different types of politicized actors in the relatively confined space of a city, encouraging the formation of networks of activists and organizations that grow together into full-blown movements, then the city is particularly favorable to very specific types of movements. The movements and SMOs that already depart from a position of relative power and legitimacy may, in turn, not need the city to accomplish movement goals at all.

Processes of movement amplification through networks (Nicholls, forthcoming), so instrumental for driving disturbances of the normalization and acceptance of existing unjust policies, do not only occur in cities. The difference is that resource-poor organizations are more likely to require a larger – albeit messier – mass of individuals and groups working together to

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question circumstances in order to be heard. The more diversified the skills of the mass, the better their chance of success in capitalizing on political opportunities that may arise. The places most likely to have these individuals in greater number are, in turn, cities.

‘Mobilizing structures’ theory aims at explaining the ‘how’ of social movement emergence within resource-poor, non-elite groups (Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2000). It claims that although networks may already exist in a community for other purposes, the success of translating a network into a mobilization effort lies in a movement’s capacity of appropriating itself of that network (Ibidem), making the different parts of the network view a social problem in a way that demands action. It involves the politicization of its members. Disruptive risk-takers keep movements current at the local level by mobilizing people on the group. Meanwhile, formalized SMOs depend on funding from backers at all geographic scales and act in accordance to that need, at times creating some tensions between organizations whose goals are, at face value, rather similar.

The question that remains unanswered is whether it is possible for organizations to zoom out of their own agendas and understand a movement as a whole, made up of complementary parts that can work together from different perspectives and interests. The education and politicization of members on the causes that they are fighting for on an abstract, structural level is necessary for such collaboration to be made possible. The ability for movements to capitalize on efforts made by its different parts is dependent on the context of how their SMOs are organized: whether they are grassroots or top-down, their level of formalization and the geographical scale at which they operate.

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2.3 Framing Legitimate Struggle & Seizing Political Opportunities

The literature presented thus far introduces the distinctive functions of formal, de-territorialized SMOs as well as those of urban-based, informal SMOs in social movements. It says less, however, about how these different organizational logics help produce different ways of creating mobilization frames that lead to collective actions and campaigns. ‘Framing’ in social movement theory refers to a process whereby movements “are not viewed merely as carriers of extant ideas

and meanings that grow automatically out of structural arrangements” (Benford & Snow, 2000:

613) but rather are in the business of turning ‘social issues’ into ‘social problems’. The latter is accomplished through the deliberate and active engagement in meaning-making by members, allies and onlookers.

The success of frames is highly dependent ‘cultural resonance’, responsible for highlighting both the credibility of claim-makers and how their claims fit in with mainstream notions of social justice in any given society (Ibidem). Defining circumstances as sufficiently bad while maintaining enough optimism that something can be changed through collective efforts, is the most important aspect brought on by appropriate framing. Koopmans’ (2004) ‘discursive opportunity structures’ theory reinforces the notion that for mobilizing frames used by movements to lead to actual change in public perceptions of a movement, they need to reflect normative and mainstream values already found in society.

A great deal of what movements do when they aim at creating real legislative change is convince the outside world – often through the use of mass media – that an issue requires addressing. The issue in question, in order to gain traction, will often fall within existing ideas of what is ‘right’. Media coverage is one of the very practical ways in which movements do framing (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). Movements use the media to gain public support and to

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frame their struggles in ways that serve to legitimate them as worthy actors to be contended with by political elites (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993).

Making an action or statement newsworthy is dependent on a series of considerations that are the outcome of optimized organization within the movement itself (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). An unprofessional and disorganized movement is less likely to be taken seriously. Meanwhile, not coordinating messages and actions with allies can be detrimental to receiving desired attention from the media (Ibidem). Social movement organizations that do not work together therefore end up competing for media attention and scattering perceptions of a movement’s claims, further pointing to the advantages of deliberating with one’s network – something that, at least for highly diversified movements with many actors who need to keep each other in the loop, is much more possible inside cities than outside them.

The difficulty in media-movement relationships is that both are in the business of meaning-making and, in the process of making an issue newsworthy, frames can become somewhat ‘lost in translation’. This is less of an issue for professional SMOs that specialize in addressing society, political representatives and the media in ways that lack in spontaneity but tend to get a message across without too many interceptions – this is particularly true of less complex movements, with fewer actors involved. Informal and grassroots movements that encourage spontaneity and boldness, on the other hand, might be better at innovating and making newsworthy claims and actions but, in turn, lack the ability to control message to the same degree of professionalism that their formalized counterparts do. Balancing radical claims and professional political negotiation partners is perhaps the best avenue to guaranteeing desired media and political attention.

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In sum, different types of organizations do framing differently. Informal urban, grassroots SMOs are attention-seeking by definition as they lack other entries to the political sphere. Their repertoires of confronting protests and inventive means for gaining attention are in some ways harmed by disorganized messaging that reflects the informality at which they operate. At the other end of the spectrum are the formalized, national and supranational social change organizations. Their strength lies in sharp and well-defined messaging that originates from knowledge of how to ‘play’ the political game when approaching media. At the same time, however, they lack the spontaneity and authenticity that allows for real critique of the status quo. In efforts to maintain high levels of cultural resonance, working from a discursive opportunities point of view, formal SMOs can end up being carriers of conformist ideas.

Political opportunity structures literature looks specifically at the role of external factors that contribute to the creation of political openings for groups that share grievances and believe that they have a chance of affecting their circumstances through collective action (Koopmans & Staham, 2000). Any democratic change, such as the temporary weakness of a ruling party or variant forms of political unrest, can be the defining factors that cause enough of a stir for aggrieved claims-makers to feel compelled to mobilize their resources and capitalize on specifically opportune moments. In looking outside of social movements for the causes of their uprisings, political opportunities literature politicizes movements. Movements and their emergence are thus contextualized in the political systems of which they are a part (Ibidem). Movements, in this theory, not only create opportunities through framing, but also often take shape in response to sudden political opportunities and constraints and only then act to mobilize their base (Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2000).

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The literature presented in this conceptual framework is useful but at times contradicting in terms of understanding what the role of these different aspects is for successful social movements. For instance: cities are important, yet not all mobilizations occur in cities. Formal SMOs are efficient but not ideal for creating momentum and informal SMOs are chaotic but are more likely to succeed in creating disturbances of the current situation: how can they work together in networks if their approaches are so different? Perhaps most importantly, do they always do so?

If frames work best when issues are already somewhat mainstream, then how exactly successful framing leads to the creation of political opportunities remains rather obscure. What types of frames and claims-makers manage to create such urgency exactly? Moreover, what happens when competing frames exist simultaneously? These are some the issues and dilemmas that remain unanswered in the existing literature and that have sparked the study proposed in this thesis. Table 1 offers an overview of the main concepts that form the theoretical basis for analysis of the empirical data collected for this thesis. The three cases presented in chapter five are themselves full of dilemmas and contradictions but, collectively, add interesting to our understanding of the logics behind mobilizations of different kinds and what makes them more or less successful. Prior to more detailed discussions on the cases, the following section will outline the research design of this study.

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Table 1. Theoretical Framework

Degree of formalization

Possibility of scaling up

Sources of power Capacities Limits/Dilemmas Framing

High National/ Supranational Access to political allies, funders, media Scale up, access to major resources, lobbying, organized, etc. Lack of innovation, conformity (need to maintain good access to formal politics), distance from activists / grassroots organizations Tight centralized framing, but somewhat conformist – reproduce systemic norms rather than challenging them

Low Urban Good relations

with locals and the affected population Succeed in getting high numbers of dedicated activists, innovation, disruptive tactics Challenging of categories makes support for causes difficult, lacking access to formal politics and funds, chaos of activities Innovative and challenging framing but somewhat chaotic and difficult to control

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III. RESEARCH DESIGN

3.1 Research Question

The main research question guiding this thesis asks “To what extent is the urban environment a

sufficient condition for facilitating the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants in New York City and the Amsterdam region?” In asking how influential the urban environment is for

the active and participatory mobilization of undocumented immigrants, the question at the same time asks to what extent the city context does not underlie these types of mobilization. It further asks whether it is sufficient that a movement takes place in a single urban geographic location for it to achieve success. The main independent variable becomes ‘the urban context’ while the main dependent variable is the ‘active mobilization of undocumented immigrants’.

Subsidiary questions that follow from the main research question are: (1) “When is the urban environment not a sufficient or even necessary condition for the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants?” inquiring about the cases where the city does not seem to matter; and (2) “In what contexts is the ‘active mobilization’ of undocumented immigrants facilitated and in what contexts is it hindered?” looking at the circumstances that are conducive and the ones that are discouraging of the participation of affected populations.

3.2 Case Selection

This thesis examines three cases, one in New York City and two in the Netherlands, of which one in Amsterdam. Reviewing literature on social movement organizations that stresses the added value for movements of marginalized groups to be located in cities in turn raises questions about whether territorialization is in fact so central to the success of this type of mobilization. To test the latter issue, the three cases selected represent differing levels of urbanization, from highly urbanized to entirely de-territorialized (see table 1). Classic social movement theory also

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claims that institutionalizations and professionalization of organizations that started off as grassroots is somewhat of an inevitable outcome, with the consequence that movement organizations begin to reproduce – rather than question – the status quo. With the latter in mind, the three cases have divergent levels of both variables – i.e. territorialization and degree of formalization (see table 2).

Table 2. Cases

Case Location Geographic Scale

Types of Organizations Professionalization & Institutionalization Dreamers New York City Hybrid

Urban, State &

National

Community Organizations MIXED

Kinderpardon Netherlands National Professional NGOs & Political Parties

HIGH

Wij Zijn Hier Amsterdam Urban Local Religious Groups,

Immigrant Service Orgs & Individuals

LOW

The Dreamers of New York City are first-generation childhood arrivals to the United States who grew up essentially American without ever having had legal status. The bill that was supposed to legalize their status, known at the Dream Act, failed at the federal level in 2010. Since then, the different groups have been trying to pass local-level policy in the state of New York that would grant these young immigrants financial aid for higher education. The movement is made up of very diverse organizations with differing levels of professionalization, from very grassroots and volunteer-run to well-funded, immigrant service-providing historical institutions of New York. Professionalization and Institutionalization aside, the Dream movement consists primarily of community organizations and the young immigrants claim to speak for themselves.

The Kinderpardon or ‘children’s pardon’ is a Dutch law aimed at legalizing the status of asylum-seeking children who had lived in – and in some cases were even born in – the Netherlands awaiting asylum procedures, for any period longer than 5 years while minors. The

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bill was originally introduced by two opposition parties – although one of them is now in government – and was designed in consultation with highly professionalized national and international nonprofits. Some individual cases of affected children were very highly publicized and gained a lot of media and political attention, but the children were represented by interest groups and not ‘empowered’ drivers of change like their New York counterparts. The

Kinderpardon was very much a national movement aimed at influencing national-level policy.

The last case is the Wij Zijn Hier action group that started as an occupation of public space by failed asylum seekers/refugees in Amsterdam who claimed to have no possibility of returning to their countries of origin. By camping outdoors for two months, the group made its struggle visible to the media, local and national authorities, but also to the people of Amsterdam, many of whom have become invaluable allies to the movement.

While national religious organizations and some political parties offered backhand support to the movement, none of the large professional immigrant rights nonprofits got involved with the protest directly or explicitly. As a result, aside from the refugees, the movement is made up mainly of individual volunteers, loosely-bound political anarchists and local religious groups. They are urban-based and have successfully occupied several empty spaces throughout the city in their short history, always with the help of the squatter movement of Amsterdam. The levels of professionalization and certainly institutionalization have always been very low.

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3.3 Methodology

3.3.1 Methods and Sampling

For the first two cases, the first research method employed was a newspaper analysis. The articles analyzed for the New York case were from The New York Times and ranged from early 2010 to late 2012, when the federal DREAM act was being advocated for and the period after it failed. The period after its failure is a key moment, as it is marked by relentless undocumented youth groups aiming for the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that eventually granted those eligible the right to request temporary legal stay and work permits in the United States.

The newspaper analysis of the Kinderpardon case was of the Dutch Volkskrant for the contentious period of two years ranging from beginning 2011 through the end of 2012 in which a few individual cases were highly publicized and publicity campaigns were being launched to support an eventual pardon for asylum-seeking children. All articles containing the key words utilized – “Dream Act” and “Kinderpardon”, respectively – were compiled in an MS Office Excel document into different variables that were later coded and counted in order to identify key players and trends. It should be noted that both of these national newspapers are considered quality press publications, and have a circulation of 2,378,8271 and 742.0002, respectively.

The analyses of the newspapers served primarily as sampling strategies, in order to establish which organizations needed to be included in the interviews. As an unintended consequence, however, reading articles on the history of both movements proved very helpful for developing interview questions, contextualizing findings and better understanding the picture

1

30-04-2013 “NY Times Circulation Jumps 18 Percent, Daily News and Post See Declines”

<http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/ny-times-circulation-jumps-18-percent-daily-news-and-post-see-declines_b81655 >

2

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painted by respondents about their involvement in the movements. While no such analysis was conducted for the last case, one similar analysis had been previously conducted for a comparable study and was consulted prior to initiating any interviews with these actors as well. It should also be noted that while the sampling strategy was a good place to initiate the interviews, respondents were always questioned about who else should be interviewed and each of these ‘leads’ was followed up – albeit with varying levels of success.

The central method of the present study is a series of semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews with different stakeholders – individuals, representatives of organizations, political figures, etc. – that have somehow been involved in the three cases studied. The questions focused on three main areas: (1) personal characteristics, such as educational level and ethnicity/whether someone had a migration background; (2) political engagement, particularly inquiring about how they had come to hold whatever position they do

in the movement and/or the organization that they represent; (3) network-related questions regarding how different actors in the movement had collaborated/collaborate to achieve common goals, therewith also positioning one’s own organization/self in the network; (4) the role of new media for the movement as a whole and for individuals/organizations.

The findings in this study are based on a total of thirty-five interviews. Fourteen interviews were conducted in New York City, with five of the most prominent organizations in the undocumented youth movement. These were: New York State Youth Leadership Council,

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United We Dream Network, Make the Road New York, Minkwon Center for Community action and RAISE – Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast (see: Figure 1).

In the Netherlands, nine interviews were conducted for the Kinderpardon case with a wide range of organizations from international NGOs to policy advisors of parliamentary sponsors of the original bill that was to grant stay for the children who ended up being eligible for the Kinderpardon, to independent government agencies. These were as follows: Defense for Children, Vluchtelingenwerk,

UNICEF, Stichting Landelijke

Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt – LOS, Kerk in Actie, a former parlamentarian for Groenlinks,

policy advisors in migration and asylum for

ChristenUnie and Partij van de Arbeid and the Kinderombudsman (see: Figure 2). It should be

noted that these interviews were conducted in Dutch and translated by the author.

For the Wij Zijn Hier case, only four interviews of the aforementioned format were conducted with volunteers in the movement. The remainder of the data used for analyzing this case – eight interviews in total, as well as the

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newspaper analysis – was collected for a similar study and was kindly made available by the researcher for the purpose of this thesis. They included four refugee activists, ASKV Steunpunt

Vluchtelingen, Amnesty International, Stichting Landelijke Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt – LOS and Kerk in Actie. All of the interviews were fully transcribed and analyzed using codes

derived in part from the theory and in part from the data, using Atlas T.I. (see: Figure 3).

3.3.2 Respondent Selection and Access

As mentioned above, the selection of stakeholders to approach was at least partially the product of the newspaper analyses. The remainder of those approached consisted of suggestions from interviewees themselves. The self-selection bias was high in the New York case because there simply were many more actors in the movement overall and thus many more that could have agreed to an interview and ultimately chose not to participate. The same goes for Wij Zijn Hier, where only those volunteers who responded positively to the emails submitted to the group’s mailing list by the first respondent were interviewed specifically for this study. In the case of the

Kinderpardon, there were far fewer actors to be contended with and each organization appeared

to have at best one person dedicated to the theme. Each time again the same names were named and it could be said rather confidently that all of the main stakeholders were interviewed for this research.

3.4 Limitations

Comparative research of three rather diverse cases taking place in different national and local institutional contexts, occurring at different geographical scales, with different types of actors can make for very exciting studies but will inevitably raise the issue of whether such a comparison is at all possible. The relevance of comparative studies is to problematize that which

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is seen as normal in one context by contrasting it with a different situation. This thesis acknowledges that the latter is better accomplished if some liberties regarding comparability of situations are tolerated. New York is not Amsterdam and Amsterdam is an exceptional case in the Netherlands. In spite of their differences, these cases show many nuances when contrasted that may not have been so clear if they were observed on their own.

Keeping in mind the limited amount of interviews conducted and the small-N approach to case selection characteristic of qualitative studies, making generalizations was never the key aim of this thesis. Yet some careful attempt was ultimately made to do so, in particular regarding the causal model used to answer the research question. While it may have been overly ambitious to generalize at all, international cross-case comparisons afford some very interesting insights that at the very least should encourage further research as to whether such a causal model proves true in different scenarios. In the following chapter, background information on the cases is provided in order to contextualize the findings in chapter five.

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IV.

CASE DESCRIPTIONS

4.1 New York City Dreamers

The so-called ‘Dreamers’ are members of the undocumented youth movement whose name derived from the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. While this federal-level bill failed to pass in the United States Senate in 2010, the population that was supposed to benefit under it – made up of college-attending, aspiring or college-educated undocumented young immigrants who grew up ‘American’ without legal status – continued to change the way undocumented minors are viewed and treated in the United States by law. At the time of the senate vote, the DREAM Act offered some much needed hope to members of a lost generation of undocumented youth who found in it the motivation and political voice to continue to strive for their ‘American dream’ (Carolan-Silva and Reyes, 2012). At the time, and to a certain degree still today, DREAM mobilization became something of a haven for all of the brain waste that resulted from the exclusion of these highly educated quasi-Americans with little access to the professional labor market (Nicholls, 2013).

When discussing the mobilization of undocumented minors in the United States, it is important to realize that children are granted access to education regardless of documentation status (Carolan-Silva and Reyes, 2012). Moreover, the legal status of school-aged children and adolescents is protected by privacy laws (Gonzales, 2011) granting undocumented minors the possibility of leading a fairly normal life until the end of high school. The privacy laws that once allowed undocumented youths to lead somewhat ‘normal’ lives seize to exist at eighteen. Gonzales (2011) frames this ‘coming of age’ of undocumented children as the period in which they enter a stage of a sort of conscious ‘illegality’.

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The role of such inclusive government policy regarding education cannot be overemphasized as it is particularly important in determining the economic, civic and social assimilation of this immigrant youth (Abrego, 2006). Having grown up in the United States with an American education, and possessing a concentration of cultural and social capital not always associated with immigrants’ rights movements (Nicholls, 2013), Dreamers have had a lot of political traction in public discourse. Their ‘deservingness’ of staying in the United States is almost unquestionable.

One of the most important changes that have occurred since the start of the DREAM movement is the administrative relief known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It is a temporary two-year work permit that also keeps beneficiaries from being deported from the United States. Even though DACA, unlike the DREAM Act, is not a path to regularizing residency status, it has significantly improved the conditions under which this generation lives and works in the United States. It is an undeniable victory of the DREAM movement. All of the individuals interviewed for this study – even those who are not particularly positive about it – believe that DACA represents the political maturity of the groups that applied pressure on the United States president to guarantee it. These groups targeted the Obama administration at the correct time, with the right sort of leverage: if it wanted the Latino vote in the 2012 election, Obama had no choice but to find a solution for Dreamers.

Besides pushing for an administrative relief, the failure of the federal DREAM Act also meant a strategic shift for Dream mobilizations: the geographic scale of contention changed. The focus shifted – for some community organizations almost entirely – to the local level. Smaller, state-level bills that could grant undocumented youth rights became the primary goal of the movement. In New York, the bill that the local Dream movement is trying to pass is known as

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the ‘New York DREAM Act’ and would grant undocumented – and DACA recipient – students access to state tuition assistance for higher education. The main challenge faced by those trying to pass the bill is that New York City is essentially a liberal and democratic ‘island’ surrounded by a state government that is conservative and that sees undocumented youth as an urban problem. There is little interest on the part of state legislators elected in the rest of the state of New York to spend tax income on what is essentially seen as a New York City problem.

The New York undocumented youth movement is made up of organizations with differing levels of institutionalization and professionalization. Yet all New York-based organizations included in this study are formalized to some degree, with all of them having at least some professional paid staff – even if part time and officially still part of the ‘affected population’.

United We Dream is a national-level organization that is made up of so called ‘affiliate organizations’ that operate at the state and urban level. In New York, the organizations that are part of this network are: (1) Make the Road New York, an important institution that advocates for immigrant rights – mostly Latino, and also in the context of e.g. organized labor – while also providing services to immigrant communities; and (2) the Minkwon Center for Community Action, a Korean-American organization from Queens that offers specific services for the local community and also advocates for immigrant rights.

The Program Director from United We Dream (UWD, henceforth) interviewed for this study has worked at the Minkwon Center (TMC, henceforth) prior to his role at UWD in the exact role now held by the youth organizer from TMC that was interviewed for study. Two employees of Make the Road New York (MTR, henceforth) are active as members of UWD and the most senior of them was one of the founders, together with the UWD program coordinator

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and a few other individuals, of the New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC, henceforth). The YLC left the UWD network shortly after the failure of the federal DREAM Act due to a claimed change in vision. The YLC, MTR and TMC are, however, in a formal coalition to pass the New York Dream Act. This coalition faces some difficulties in trying to bring together the more professionalized – organizations such as MTR and TMC – and the more grassroots community organizations – organizations such as the YLC. On the whole, in order to be heard, however discordant they become, these organizations have no choice but to pool resources to try to look for political openings under which they may be able to sway support from up-state New York legislators.

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4.2 Kinderpardon

The Kinderpardon is a regulation stipulated in the coalition agreement between the governing parties in the current parliament of the Netherlands – the liberal center-right VVD and the labor center-left PvdA – aimed at legalizing the status of asylum-seeking children who had lived in or were born in the Netherlands awaiting asylum procedures for any period longer than 5 years while being minors3. Siblings and parents of Kinderpardon beneficiaries are also able to regularize their status under the provision4. Before the Kinderpardon was enforced, the PvdA and

ChristenUnie – then both opposition parties – introduced a bill under the name of Kinderasielwet

to address a problem that their respective parliament groups were consistently being confronted with: children facing deportation after having lived in an asylum request limbo for most if not all of their young lives. Educators, churches, parents, friends, mayors and, tirelessly, the NGO Defense for Children, were pressuring the left wing of Dutch politics to come up with a solution for this predicament.

The PvdA originally drafted the bill and, together with ChristenUnie, presented it to many of the nonprofits included in this study in order to fine-tune its parameters. At the time, the left parties did not have a majority in the parliament. Although the Christian center party CDA was in the governing coalition, so was the most far-right party in the Netherlands making it a particularly difficult time for humane immigration bills to pass. Even with all left-leaning parties supporting the bill, there was little chance that it would pass without support from one of the majority parties.

It is worth noting that unlike what was presented about contentious politics of social movements in the theoretical framework, the Netherlands is home to a deliberative, consensual,

3 ‘Het Kinderpardon’, de Kinderombudsman http://www.dekinderombudsman.nl/223/ visited on 04-05-2014 4 Ibidem

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corporatist governance system whereby interest groups are represented in systematic and formalized ways, and included in formal politics to a large degree (Kickert, 2003). Representatives of highly professionalized human and immigrant rights NGOs often have a ‘seat at the table’ in discussions regarding the constituencies that they represent. These agents tend to be consulted when policy is being developed in their fields of advocacy and lobbying, and their voices are likely to be acknowledged without the need of messy SMO coalitions where disagreements prevail – unlike their New York counterparts. The down-side of this system is that these highly institutionalized NGOs end up working as part of the state apparatus, adopting some state procedures and points of view, as well as categorizations.

At the same time that the two parties were designing and sponsoring this bill, a few cases of rooted children became highly publicized in the national media. A member of the left-wing greens Groenlinks parliament group, responsible for asylum and immigration within is his then party, launched a website and a publicity campaign to garner signatures from civilians in support of what he branded as the Kinderpardon. Aside from rebranding the existing bill, he was responsible for a full-fledged marketing stunt with multiple phases. After the website launch, he arranged for national celebrity endorsements of the campaign, created a very sentimental video5 that went viral asking for support for the cause and ultimately collected signatures from more than one-hundred and twenty mayor from the entire country in support of the bill. Although both the ChristenUnie and the PvdA were less than pleased to see their bill ‘hijacked’, both respondents from those parties admitted that without this campaign at the opportune time of the highly publicized asylum cases that touched the nation, such a relief for these children could have taken much longer to come in effect.

5“ Deze kinderen horen hier! Kinderpardon.nu” 26/01/2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBwiQrQl-Lk,

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Once the cabinet fell and elections were held where the left-leaning parties had not only one of the largest parties in the parliament but also a majority, it became clear that, in one way or another, the bill was going to pass. The entry of the PvdA into the coalition with the VVD meant that they were able to negotiate the Kinderpardon so it would not require a vote – even if it came at the cost of other humane policy for undocumented people. The implementation of the

Kinderpardon, however, is currently receiving a lot of criticism. It is believed to have been made

explicitly harsh so as to keep the number of beneficiaries as low as possible. The Kinderpardon is the most formal and institutionalized of the three cases, with the least amount of actors involved, all of whom are embedded in formal politics to a certain degree – from political parties to often-consulted international nonprofits (see Figure 2).

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4.2 Wij Zijn Hier

The Wij Zijn Hier group began as a protest by rejected asylum seekers who started occupying public space in Amsterdam claiming that they had been denied asylum in spite of being unable to return to their countries of origin. Two months into the protest camping outdoors, the site was evacuated by Amsterdam police. The group was moved into a vacant squatted church where they stayed for approximately half a year from late 2012 to mid-20136. Without structural or formal assistance from local or national authorities, the group relied primarily on donations and assistance from fellow Amsterdammers to survive.

With the help of Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland, the municipality of Amsterdam gained access to a head-count of refugees living in the church location. Participation in the head-count was voluntary and was openly part of an effort from the Dutch authorities to separate the group and assess them as individuals, whose asylum requests could be reviewed per case7. The refugees insisted on being seen as a group but nonetheless many of them signed up to the list. Although the group was eventually evicted from the church, they continued to occupy – and get evicted from – other squatted locations all over the city for the following half year. Each squat was coordinated by the squatter movement of Amsterdam and made livable with the help of allies, many of whom from local religious organizations, but most of whom simply individuals: from independent immigrant rights activists to fellow sympathizing urban dwellers.

The group’s main victory to date came at the end of the year 2013, when the municipality of Amsterdam offered temporary shelter in a former prison and a food budget to the 159 refugees that had been on the list8. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of refugees who joined the movement continued to grow throughout this process meaning that not all who were part of the

6

“Where we go”, Wij Zijn Hier, http://wijzijnhier.org/where/, visited on 01-04-2014

7

“Hulp vluchtelingen per geval”, Jasper Karman, Het Parool, 04-04-2013

8

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