Securing Citizenship: Mexican Migrant Farmworkers in California and Ontario.

This paper starts from the recognition that processes of regional economic integration â€" in this case, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - involve more than trade and narrow conceptions of security. These same processes also result in social responses that challenge the conventional categories, subjects and practices of national citizenship. We draw on recent developments within critical citizenship theory to illustrate this contention by comparing the rights and status of Mexican migrant, non-citizen temporary workers in two different jurisdictions, Ontario, Canada and California, USA, working in the agricultural sector. In this paper, we wish to destabilize the conventional dichotomy between legal, temporary worker and ‘illegal’ workers by examining the factors that affect the ability of non-citizen workers to access rights and protections (or not) abroad. In other words, what roles do international human rights frameworks, national migration policies, transnational communities, unions and social justice groups play in the everyday lives of these non citizen workers in the two jurisdictions? Legal status is certainly a major determinant in the capacity of these workers to access social citizenship rights, but we argue that there are many other factors involved, particularly the role of the Mexican state, sub-national jurisdictions and the claims made by migrant workers themselves and groups that struggle on their behalf.In Canada, the entry and status of migrant workers comes under the provisions of a bilateral agreement Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program established in 1974. Despite the frequent construction of this program as a “best practice,” questions have been raised regarding workers’ civil rights, human rights and their ability to access even limited labour protections. Moreover, the program contains no provision to access permanent residency. In contrast, most migrant farmworkers in California are irregular workers and face many of the same obstacles as their counterparts in Ontario but in addition have to contend with the constraints placed on their capacity to access rights by their undocumented status and highly precarious position in the labour market. In this paper, we investigate how workers in the two jurisdictions attempt to access social citizenship rights through an examination of the policies and programs of the federal and sub-national governments of the countries in which the workers are temporarily residing, the activities of Mexican embassies and consulates, and the role played by civil society actors - unions, local Mexican associations and NGOs - in seeking to promote the rights and interests of Mexican farmworkers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]