Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries

In this groundbreaking work, Kamal Sadiq reveals that most of the world's illegal immigrants are not migrating directly to the US, but to countries in the vast developing world. And when they arrive in countries like India and Malaysia--which are often governed by weak and erratic bureaucracies--they are able to obtain citizenship papers fairly easily. Sadiq introduces "documentary citizenship" to explain how paperwork--often falsely obtained--confers citizenship on illegal immigrants. Once immigrants obtain documents, Sadiq writes, it is a relatively simple matter for, say, an Afghan migrant with Pakistani papers to pass himself off as a Pakistani citizen both in Pakistan and abroad. Across the globe, there are literally tens of millions of such illegal immigrants who have assumed the guise of "citizens." Who, then, is really a citizen? And what does citizenship mean for most of the world's peoples? Rendered in vivid detail, Paper Citizens not only shows how illegal immigrants acquire false papers, but also sheds light on the consequences this will have for global security in the post 9/11 world.

Table of Contents:
Acknowlegements List of Acronyms A Paradox: Illegal Immigrants as Citizens Part I. The Process 1. Searching for Illegal Immigrants 2. Networks of Complicity 3. Blurred Membership 4. Documentary Citizenship Part II. The Proof 5. Voters across Borders 6. Tough Ain't Enough 7. After Citizenship Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Kamal Sadiq is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Review :
"Paper Citizens is truly pathbreaking. It is probably the most impressive and important book ever written about illegal immigration within the developing world-a subject that tends to be glossed over in an immigration debate too narrowly preoccupied with population flows from poor to rich countries. More broadly, this book is one of the finest examples of how researchers can measure the unmeasurable and make the invisible world more visible." -Peter Andreas, Brown University "In these pages you will find the public policy dilemmas and the human tragedies, the conceptual confusion and the gripping stories that show how urgent it is to think more clearly about how foreigners becomes citizens. Anyone who cares about immigration must read Kamal Sadiq's excellent book."--Moisés Naím, Editor-in-Chief, Foreign Policy, and author of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy "In Paper Citizens, Kamal Sadiq brings startling new empirical information and theoretical arguments to the mounting scholarly and political debates over citizenship. He shows that in many countries legal citizenship is far more complex and uncertain than commonly recognized, in ways that pose major challenges for how political governance, economic welfare, and national security should be pursued, within and across existing states. A seminal contribution."--Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania "Paper Citizens has serious implications for two big public debates in North America and Europe: illegal migration and security. With a remarkable eye for detail, Kamal Sadiq covers material systematically ignored by the existing scholars of citizenship and migration. It is absolutely fascinating."--Ashutosh Varshney, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, and author of Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life "In this impressive work, Sadiq lays bare alignments in the migration experience easily obscured by the analytical categories that dominate explanation in this field of research. He makes visible the extent to which these categories are empirically rooted in the Western experience. When one moves the lens to Asia, we begin to understand the need for a far broader range of categories. But perhaps even more surprising, is that he shows us that Asia's experience also illuminates features of the west that we have not recognized sufficiently."--Saskia Sassen, Robert Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University and author of Territory, Authority, Rights "Kamal Sadiq makes a major contribution to Political Science by explaining in Paper Citizens the who, why, and how of documentary citizenship in India, Pakistan and Malaysia. He reveals the subterranean processes by which millions have acquired citizenship. His analysis challenges the claims of states to comprehensive territorial sovereignty and illuminates a neglected globalization process."--Lloyd Rudolph, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Chicago "One of the best new books Ive read this year... [T]his book is going to grab intellectual and policy attention through the next two years, across the world."--Gautum Chikermane, The Hindustan Times "An impressive analysis that is historically grounded, empirically wide-ranging, and theoretically innovative. The result is an engaging read that sets the course for a new research agenda that addresses immigration and citizenship in the developing world... Sadiq's findings are both thorough and compelling... [This] excellent book has set a high standard for scholarly research, while pointing the way for a new research agenda."--International Migration Review "Paper Citizens is an exceptionally important publication, both theoretically and empirically, and should become a standard reference for social scientists working on citizenship, migration and nationalism."--Asian Journal of Social Science