Mapping Citizenship: Status, Membership, and the Path in Between

Abstract

Núňez, D. C. (2016). MAPPING CITIZENSHIP: STATUS, MEMBERSHIP, AND THE PATH IN BETWEEN. Utah Law Review, 2016(3), 477-533. The concept of citizenship poses an interesting asymmetry: though all citizens receive the same rights and obligations on equal terms, citizenship is not distributed to individuals on equal terms. In the United States, some are citizens by virtue of birth within the national territory or birth to citizen parents. Others must undergo the process of naturalization. Different citizenship rules appear to solve for different variables, and it is not clear whether and how those variables relate to one another. This Article begins unraveling the paradox. It argues that the apparent paradox results from a failure to understand the relationship between citizenship’s formal and substantive dimensions. The Article reconceptualizes citizenship by decoupling substantive and formal citizenship. Formal citizenship is not a static condition that is or even ought to be synonymous with more abstract notions o f membership and belonging. Rather, formal citizenship is a path that leads toward substantive citizenship, and formal citizenship rules serve as entrances to that path. Mapping and understanding the way that formal citizenship can relate to substantive citizenship can inform contemporary debates about citizenship, immigration, and membership. This Article offers a typology o f the ways in which formal citizenship can relate to substantive citizenship. Citizenship rules can play a “descriptive” role by conferring citizenship on individuals who have already achieved some measure of substantive citizenship. But citizenship can also encourage an individual’s development of the qualities that make someone a desirable member of the polity. That is, citizenship rules may be “prescriptive” in that they distribute citizenship to individuals who are not yet fully substantive citizens. Citizenship rides may also be “predictive ” in nature: they bestow citizenship on individuals who are likely to become substantive citizens and help facilitate that development. Other citizenship rules operate to claim individuals without regard to notions of membership and belonging; these may be fairly described as “conscriptive” citizenship rides. To illustrate the value o f the proposed framework, this Article uses it to recast two contemporary debates that touch on citizenship: challenges to territorial birthright citizenship and the creation of a “path to citizenship" for DREAMers.