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Title: Narratives from non-citizen former youth in child welfare care fighting crimmigration and deportation

Authors: Mandeep Kaur Mucina; Abigail Lash-Ballew

Addresses: Faculty of Human and Social Development, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada ' Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, 246 Bloor St. W, Toronto, ON M5S 1V4, Canada

Abstract: This article exposes the policies that affect the stability of non-citizen migrant youth who enter child welfare care and reveals the carceral logics underpinning three dominant systems: child welfare, immigration, and criminal (in)justice. Drawing on the narratives of four former youth in care with precarious status ensnared in the criminal (in)justice system and slated for deportation, we advance a transcarceral and bordering framework to understand the systemic oppression non-citizen former youth in child welfare care encountered as they navigated social exclusion from multiple carceral systems and resisted constructions of belonging. We argue that the child welfare systems abandoned these former youth in care, leading them to an unstable life spiralling towards criminality while they were unconsciously living with precarious status as non-citizens, facing deportation from Canada. The article ends with recommendations from the former youth in care as they reflect on the events that led them towards deportation.

Keywords: child welfare; deportation; aging out; transcarceral; crimmigration; bordering practices; migration; non-status youth; precarious status.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2024.140104

International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2024 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.35 - 55

Received: 05 Jul 2022
Accepted: 08 Feb 2023
Published online: 24 Jul 2024 *