What to the Undocumented Migrant Is a Border? an Analysis of Migration and Borders from the Immigrant Point of View

What’s described as an “immigration problem” is only perceived as such because it is apprehended from the point of view of the capitalist state, which has in turn become hegemonic. Framing the issue of migration in this way, limits the realm of possible “solutions” to ones that further affect human ability to migrate, while leaving the capitalist system intact. If the fact of humans moving across space is to be understood as a problem, the problem is not the mobility of people, but rather the presence of capitalist borders. In this paper I aim to reframe the issue from a perspective that de-reifies these capitalist conceits. Most analysis of migration reflects, wittingly or not, the bourgeois perspective or the perspective of the state. This paper seeks to present an alternative perspective by analyzing the issue from the perspective of an immigrant, hence the title of the article, “what to an undocumented immigrant is a border, inspired by Frederick Douglas’s powerful reflection “What to The Slave is the Fourth of July?”. This paper frames the issue from my own perspective as sociologist and a scholar of migration, but just as importantly from the perspective of an undocumented immigrant. The paper therefore reflects my personal experiences as migrant, but also the experience in general of being a migrant. It is at once analytical and autobiographical.