...ways in which the status of one family member can affect the well-being of the entire family. Those who had children reported that the family's status disadvantaged their children, whether they were Canadian or foreign-born, as parents' status was used to justify denying children rights to which they are entitled by international, national, and provincial laws. The paper challenges approaches to citizenship and immigration status that fail to consider the implications of legal status for a person's primary social units and networks.

Resume

Cette etude examine les consequences du statut precaire sur le bien-etre de 15 participants, en se penchant tout particulierement sur leurs efforts pour revendiquer l'acces aux services, leurs sentiments d'appartenance et de soutien social, ainsi que les repercussions du statut des parents sur leurs enfants. Elle examine les differentes facons par lesquelles le statut d'un membre de la famille peut affecter le bien-etre de la famille toute entiere. Ceux ayant des enfants ont rapporte que ces derniers, qu'ils soient nes au Canada ou a l'etranger, avaient ete defavorises par le statut de la famille, etant donne que le statut des parents etait employe pour justifier le deni aux enfants de droits qui etaient les leurs en droit international et selon les lois nationales et provinciales. L'article remet en question les facons d'aborder la question de statut de citoyennete et d'immigrant qui ne prennent pas en ligne de compte les consequences du statut juridique sur les unit& sociales de base et les reeaux sociaux pour chaque personne.

Canadian citizens, secure in their full legal status, often take for granted many of the rights and entitlements that citizenship bestows on them. However, for other members of the population including, for example, non-citizen or not-yet-citizen refugees and immigrants, the question of status and thus of rights and entitlements is much less certain. (1) In some cases, even citizens may encounter difficulty in accessing and obtaining services and protections to which they are entitled by virtue of their citizenship. This latter situation is not uncommon, for example, among Canadian-born children whose parents have uncertain legal status. Although recognized as citizens by birth, they may face barriers in accessing education and other entitlements. Drawing on qualitative data from fifteen interviews, this paper looks at the experience of precarious legal status for families and children in Canada. (2) In particular, it investigates various ways in which the uncertain legal status of one or more family members can affect the well-being of the family as a whole, including Canadian citizens. Our approach challenges perspectives on citizenship and legal status that privilege the status of individuals in their definitions, and which fail to consider the implications of status for a person's primary social units and networks.

Key Concepts: Status and Well-Being

Berinstein, McDonald, Nyers, Wright, and Zeheri and the Status Campaign used the term "non-status" to refer generally to individuals who do not have the required permissions or documents that would establish their legal and undeniable right to live and work in Canada on a temporary or permanent basis. (3) However, we use the term "uncertain status" and also follow Goldring, Berinstein, and Bernhard's use of "precarious status" in order to stress that the question of one's legal position in the country--and hence the question of one's rights, entitlements, access to services, obligations, responsibilities, and so on--cannot always be determined as a strictly black-and-white matter. (4) People may shift between statuses, and there are a number of grey areas to consider, which Goldring et al. refer to as "gradations of status." (5) For the purposes of our study, the concept of precarious status is applied to individuals in a range of categories, who may also experience shifts between different types of legal status over the duration of their presence in Canada. (6) Factors such as gender, ethnicity, class background, racialization, employment status, income, life cycle, age, and presence of young children are known to affect people's well-being. We add uncertain status as an important determinant of well-being.

Well-being refers not only to mental and physical health, but also to an individual's level of social and economic security. The conditions surrounding immigrant settlement, including immigrant status, are crucial to newcomer well-being. In her work with asylum seekers in Australia, Rees defined well-being as "a holistic state that includes psychological, physical, spiritual, social and cultural contentment and welfare ... that incorporates both a public/social standard, as well as a personal/private viewpoint." (7) Rees's definition is not only relevant to cases of uncertain legal status, but is typical of work that considers human health from a broad, "social determinants of health" perspective. (8) Such an approach emphasizes the impact of poverty and inequality on health and on well-being, and it recognizes that there are also gendered and ethnoracial dimensions to these conditions. (9) Well-being, in sum, reflects the individual's ability to function in and adapt to the new society.

Well-being is a key factor in settlement, playing a role in both adaptation and integration. A variety of experiences and factors before, during, and after migration contribute to individual and family well-being. There is growing recognition that "geopolitical, economic and cultural influences affect the health of immigrants." (10) According to Beiser and Hou, the main challenges to well-being during the settlement process include economic factors such as unemployment or underemployment, discrimination, and language barriers. (11) Another significant challenge to wellbeing in the context of the settlement process is seeking a sense of belonging and welcome in the society of which one is now a part, as well as feeling valued and respected by members of that society. (12) This would include a sense of one's ethnoracial and religious identity, and feeling oneself to be a member of a community--in the host country, one's native country, and/or a transnational community. (13)

In countries such as Canada, where public services provide education and health care to the population, being able to access social services is crucial to well-being. Several Canadian reports provided important insights for our study, particularly in highlighting the existence of a population living with uncertain status in Canada and raising questions about their access to services. (14) The report by Berinstein et al., for example, drew attention to the fear experienced by non-status persons and pointed in particular to the vulnerability of non-status women to domestic violence. (15) They discussed impacts on health including incidents of depression and documented lack of access to various services often because of the extreme demands of job situations. Challenges also arise from restrictions on labour market participation and mobility, as well as from lack of access to a range of services. Several researchers have identified fear as a barrier to obtaining services, and in particular have found negative outcomes in the areas of health and education due to this fear. (16) Families with uncertain status who have children must make difficult choices with respect to livelihood in order to be able to care for their children. All of these factors cause many families to feel insecure and unwelcome, and this state of limbo results in precarious settlement.

Research on Precarious Status in Canada

The general topic of living without full legal status in Canada, and the specific study of families with uncertain or precarious status in Canada have remained under-researched for many reasons, including the inherent difficulties of working with "invisible" people, many of whom wish to stay below the radar of government authorities. (17) Beyond the methodological challenges of establishing trust with people who are in precarious situations, the requirements of university ethics committees to protect the identities of these people can present serious obstacles to researchers, who may not conduct follow-up research, as that would involve retaining contact information. A major concern of such committees is the extent to which researchers might be compelled to provide information about participants to authorities. (18)

Nevertheless, there is growing interest in the topic, spurred in part by a series of arrests and deportations that took place during the summer of 2006, which shed light on a topic that has received sporadic media attention. (19) In the US, the Census Bureau (20) has been counting and providing estimates of the undocumented population since the early 1980s, and academics have studied undocumented migrants from a number of disciplines and perspectives. (21) However, in Canada there are no official statistics on the population with uncertain status, and available research on the topic, while important, is scarce. (22)

In the US, as in Canada, undocumented families experience significant challenges in terms of limited access to and differential outcomes in education and health. (23) While the Canadian context is different from the more well-studied US case, findings from studies of the undocumented in general, and families in particular, provide an important literature and should inform Canadian research. A recurrent theme in this work is that undocumented or uncertain status compounds other forms of exclusion and marginality, making it difficult for those without full status to experience well-being. At the same time, the presence of a large undocumented population can mitigate the effects of individual undocumented status.

In his work with undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans in San Diego and Dallas, Chavez examined the multiple understandings of one's sense of community, noting that it may be "imagined" and not confined to a specific geographic area. Ideally, suggested Chavez, migrants, even though undocumented, come to have "a sense of belonging to multiple communities." (24) In his sample, 60 per cent of Mexicans and 50 per cent of Central Americans felt they were a part of their American community. For these individuals, a sense of community came from shopping, having friends, and participating in community events including church functions. Chavez underscored the fact that for most of these people,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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