New York City's 'Migrant Crisis': Undocumentation and Accompaniment

Catalog description

Since late 2022, the arrival of more than 150,000 newcomers in what city officials describe as a "migrant crisis" has put New York City's reputation as a sanctuary city to the test. This course aims to take us to the heart of the new immigrant experience and urges us to ask: What does it mean to be an undocumented newcomer in 21st century New York? We will first seek to understand NYC's long history of refuge through visits to Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum. How do we place this moment in time as part of NYC's historical continuum as a city of arrival and settlement? Then, we examine the multiple layers of bureaucracy that shape newcomer migrants' lives today. How have policies surrounding schools, homeless shelters, healthcare, workers' rights, and immigration evolved over the last century? Lastly, we will explore how newcomer migrants resist precarity and exercise agency. How have undocumented newcomers deployed strategies of resistance to navigate a landscape of 'organized abandonment'? To answer these questions, students will be paired with a few of the estimated thousands of newcomers from Venezuela, Colombia, Guinea, Mauritania, and others to take part in a semester-long accompaniment project. The accompaniment project will involve accompanying newcomer families as they navigate immigration court, the shelter system, and public education. We will draw from urban studies, sociology, history, and migration studies, as well as guest lectures by newcomers, organizers, and lawyers to help us paint a picture of the world that surrounds newcomers today.