Undocumented Immigrant Mobilizations in NYC and Amsterdam

20/06/2014
Laura Caldas de Mesquita
Master Thesis
Research Master’s in Urban Studies
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. W. J. Nicholls
Second Reader: Dr. M.J.M. Maussen
Undocumented, Not Invisible
A study of undocumented immigrant mobilizations in New York City and the
Amsterdam Region

Preface
About two years ago, I was very much struggling to find my footing in my new department of
Geography and Planning. I felt like fish out of water. I missed the theoretical depth that had fed
my sociological imagination for all those years. I started thinking, very seriously, that I had
chosen wrong. Then I met Prof. Dr. Jan Rath, with whom I felt comfortable enough to ask for
advice. I had to choose a research apprenticeship for the 2nd
semester but none of the options
seemed right. Jan asked me, as if it was that simple, who I’d like to work with. “Walter,” after
all, it was his urban sociology class that had made me fall in love with the discipline.
Walter’s supervision went beyond what I could have expected. The amazing world of
urban social movements, politics, immigration and unpretentious writing that he introduced me
to built the foundation of this thesis. He inspired me and pushed me way out of my comfort zone,
always more confident than I ever was that everything would be okay. I don’t believe I have ever
learned so much from a single person in my adult life. Thank you, Walter.
I am so thankful to Jan, who, aside from encouraging me to contact Walter, introduced
me to Prof. Dr. Phil Kasinitz from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center who
invited me to spend my semester abroad at his department as a visiting research scholar. This
thesis would not have been what it is had I gone to another institution in that incredible city.
To my respondents, who allowed me to take a scrutinizing look at their worlds, I am
forever indebted to each of you. I have done my very best to do justice to your stories of human
struggle for justice and hope to be able to continue to tell them in publications to come so that
your strong voices can be heard a thousand times.
I would like to thank my parents, Agnes and Fábio, for the love, wise words, respect, and
support (in more ways than one) that have made the past two years possible. I would like to
thank my partner Annis for the constant reassurance, for the amazing adventure in Brooklyn with
our two cats, and for filling me with optimism during some of the harshest moments of this thesis
by asking me to be his wife. My sisters, Nat and Ju, my rocks through everything, thank you. My
baby sister Khadija, my niece Luiza: your existence in the world motivates me to be a strong,
educated woman that you can look up to one day. I had so many great ones myself.
Finally, I could not be more humbled by the trust that the Vreedefonds put in me and my
research project, aiding me with financing my studies at CUNY. Thank you, I have no words to
express what that meant to me. You made me feel like the work I do is worthwhile.

SUMMARY
New York City and Amsterdam are hubs for international migration. The three undocumented immigrant
mobilizations studied in this thesis manifest the tensions that still exist in immigrant-receiving societies
with regards to policy. The relationship between cities and movements is well documented in the
literature. This thesis aimed at testing the latter relationship by asking: “To what extent is the urban
environment a sufficient condition for facilitating the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants in
New York City and the Amsterdam region?” The main method used in this research was a series of 35
qualitative semi-structured interviews with activists, politicians and professionals involved in the three
movements.
Literature on city-movement relationship points to cities as spaces where clusters of individuals
form, and social movements can build networks between actors with differentiated skills that benefit
common goals. Social Movement Organizations (SMOs) can be differentiated between professional and
informal, defining how they mobilize: the former focuses on lobbying; the latter on grassroots innovative
protests. Professionalization in SMOs is thought to transform them into top-down operations that begin to
reproduce the status quo. When informal and formal SMOs work together, radical-flank effect can benefit
both by making tamer SMOs seem like better negotiation partners to decision-makers while still
maintaining innovation in the movement. The assumption is that cities particularly favor resource-poor,
unstructured grassroots SMOs.
New York City Dreamers (NYD), who migrated to the US as children, have lived their lives
without papers. The failure of a federal bill shifted the movement’s focus towards local-level organizing.
The SMOs that make up the movement are a hybrid of professional and informal. They combine
resources from the former with innovations from the latter, but the network has internal conflicts
regarding the perceived inauthenticity of professionals and disobedience of ‘informals’. Radical-flank
effect is present, but under-utilized. Kinderpardon (KP) is a law that granted asylum seeking children
legal stay in the Netherlands. Childhood asylum became a social problem in an unlikely setting: a center-

right cabinet with a left-wing minority. SMOs and parties that participated in the movement were highly
professionalized and institutionalized. They organized in a top-down manner but used grassroots-inspired
methods. Wij Zijn Hier (WZH) is a group of adult rejected refugees who occupied multiple public and
private spaces in Amsterdam in search of visibility and have organized almost entirely at a very grassroots
capacity, surviving ultimately due to their individual allies and geographic location.
Taken together, the three mobilizations show that the city appears to play a role in the uprisings
of highly marginalized actors, but that it is not sufficient to maintain active mobilization. The NYD and
WZH cases show the city is sooner a necessary condition for very marginalized actors to mobilize.
Without politicization and resources, urban movements such as WZH can turn into service-providing
actions. Moreover, when the mobilization of the effected is not necessary because they are represented by
powerful SMOs, the city is of no relevance at all.

Table of contents
Chapter Page
I. Introduction……………………………………………………….....................1-5
II. Theoretical Framework
1.1 The importance of the Urban Environment…………………………………......6-8
1.2 Modes of Organization…………………………………………………………...8-12
1.3 Framing Legitimate Struggle & Seizing Political Opportunities……………….13-17
III. Research Design
3.1 Research Question……………………………………………………………….18
3.2 Case Selection……………………………………………………………………18-20
3.3 Methodology……………………………………………………………………..21-24
3.3.1 Methods & Sampling
3.3.2 Respondent Selection & Access
3.4 Limitations……………………………………………………………………….25
IV. Case Descriptions
3.5 New York Dreamers……………………………………………………………..26-29
3.6 Kinderpardon…………………………………………………………………….30-32
3.7 Wij Zijn Hier…………………………………………………………………….33-35
V. Findings
5.1 New York Dreamers……………………………………………………………..36-50
5.2 Kinderpardon…………………………………………………………………….51-63
5.3 Wij Zijn Hier……………………………………………………………………..64-74
VI. Cross-case Discussion & Conclusion.................................................................57-62
VII. References……………………………………………………….....................63-64

Laura Caldas de Mesquita – Undocumented, Not Invisible
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I. INTRODUCTION
The cities of New York and Amsterdam, each with a foreign-born population making up
approximately one third of the total, are essentially immigration hubs within their respective
national contexts (Rath et al, 2014). Both of these cities represent spaces where immigration
policy and the tensions between different actors affected by, and concerned with, it manifest
themselves. This thesis focuses on mobilizations of undocumented immigrants that arise in and
around cities like New York and Amsterdam. At times momentary and oftentimes sustained,
these waves of contention ascend at differing geographic scales and take shape according to their
institutional environments and internal organizational capacities. Whether a mobilization is made
up of mainly formal or informal organizations, whether it stays at the local level or scales up
country-wide and how these marginalized political actors manage to create a space for
contestation are central themes of the present study. The three-case comparison undertaken in
this research explores on the nuances between these different conditions.
Undocumented migration has long been a politicized issue for immigrant-receiving
societies. In the United States, a country historically made up of immigrant settlers,
undocumented migration has been one of the most prominent topics in political discourse and
policy-making since at least the 1980s (Massey, 2007). The country’s migration past is often
romanticized, while the predominantly Latino post-1965 immigration is postulated primarily as a
threat (Chavez, 2008). For the Netherlands, its status as an ‘immigrant-receiving society’ is still
rather uneasy and, as a result, problematizing non-Western migration has been high on the
political agenda since the 1990s (van der Leun & Kloosterman, 2005).
In recent years, the Netherlands and the United States have both seen somewhat
unexpected uprisings of undocumented immigrants demanding visibility and [human] rights.

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Cities such as New York and Amsterdam have numerous immigrant community and service
organizations, as well as urban-dwelling sympathizers of immigrant rights issues. A relationship
between cities and social movements, conceptualized as result of the clustering of organizations,
affected populations and allies into relatively contained areas, has been documented in the
literature and is nothing short of fascinating. The present thesis set out to better understand the
latter relationship for this recent wave of undocumented immigrant rights movements, by asking:
“To what extent is the urban environment a sufficient condition for facilitating the active
mobilization of undocumented immigrants in New York City and the Amsterdam region?”
In looking at whether the city serves as a ‘sufficient condition’ for the active mobilization
of undocumented immigrants, this thesis simultaneously inquires about the circumstances where
the city plays little to no role in actively mobilizing undocumented immigrants. It is evident that
cities, with their landmarks and public spaces, lend themselves as stages for the dramaturgy of
collective action such as protests and marches. But it is the diversity of its residents and
economic activities, the specialized skills that residents possess and having all of it in such dense
areas that foster something of a breeding ground for collective contention (Nicholls & Beaumont,
2004; Nicholls, 2008).
Marginalized actors such as undocumented immigrants, who have no obvious point of
entry to the formal political system, can rely on building networks with other actors and using
these bridges to attain some of their political goals. Powerful allies and networks that include
influential organizations and institutions can very well define the success of a movement. Cities
are one of the places where such alliances can be formed.
The first case study takes place in New York City, where undocumented immigrant youth
that arrived in the United States as children have been mobilizing for years – to some degree

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since the early 2000s – to demand structural legal changes that would make their lives as adults
possible in the country where they grew up. The social movement that the New York
undocumented youth are a part of is spread across the United States and is known for having
blown new life into the American immigrant rights movement (Nicholls, 2013). The bill that
sparked youth participation in protesting the immigration system, known at the DREAM Act,
aimed at legalizing the status of this category of immigrants, failed to pass in 2010. Since then,
local ‘Dreamer’ organizations – including the ones active in New York – have been working to
pass regional bills that could provide more opportunities to these communities.
Dreamers, many of whom are college students or graduates, are often idealized as high-
achieving ‘quasi-Americans’. Having been educated within the American system, Dreamers are
sophisticated activists who are largely self-organized and adopt a strong bottom-up base of
community mobilization as part of their philosophy. As such, they make extensive use of
narrative and individual biographies to gain support for their movement goals. While the federal
DREAM Act was never made into law, the movement has booked some successes. Those who
would have benefitted under the DREAM Act can now apply for a temporary, two-year working
permit that also keeps them safe from deportation. Even though some political goals were met,
the movement continues to actively organize, educate and politicize the undocumented youth of
New York City to drive more immigrant-friendly policies at the state level.
The second case, situated in the Netherlands, is, at face-value, rather similar to the
Dreamers. Much like their American counterparts, the childhood arrival asylum seekers who
were provided legal status under the Kinderpardon gained public support once their unique
condition of ‘statelessness’ became known. The amount of years spent in the asylum legal limbo
relative to years of age, fluency of the Dutch language and rootedness in what may be considered

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a stereotypical Dutch life were great drivers of such support (Versteegt & Maussen, 2012).
Unlike their New Yorker counterparts, however, the movement behind the Kinderpardon was
dispersed throughout the Netherlands, and made up of very few and highly institutionalized
actors. Driven by professional NGOs and negotiated in political deals, as much as the
Kinderpardon made for a well-publicized and vibrant cause, the movement had a decidedly top-
down approach for the most part. This, coupled with the dispersion of ‘the affected’ throughout
the country, was not particularly conducive for the participation of the youths in the movement
as ‘speaking partners’.
The third case presented in this thesis is the Wij Zijn Hier movement of rejected adult
refugees who gained a lot of traction by occupying public space in the city of Amsterdam, in a
highly mediatized spectacle. The group has been living in different locations throughout the city
of Amsterdam since its beginnings, surviving largely on account of the support that they have
received from local Amsterdammers and to a certain degree, the municipality. Wij Zijn Hier
lends itself as a suitable test case, in the Netherlands, for exploring the hypothesis that there
might be a relationship between the urban environment and undocumented immigrant
mobilizations. The movement is informally organized and made up of very distinct actors.
Unlike the Kinderpardon, the refugees are part of the decision-making in the movement and are
considered to be largely self-organized. The organization is flat, diversified and extremely
grassroots.
Looking at all three cases, individually and then collectively, the differences between
them become more nuanced. It is a shift away from looking at a dichotomous ideal type of
‘bottom-up’ versus ‘top-down’ organizing of social movements as static and focusing instead on
subtle and at times fluid differences and similarities between the organizational logics of the

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movements under study. This comparison further contrasts mobilizations made up of national
and at times international organizations, and those that consist primarily of urban-based
networks. This thesis speaks to theory on the role of cities for social movement organizations in
the realm of geographies of contention, as well as classic social movement theory on resource
mobilization and organization. It aims at providing better understanding of the role of different
factors – geographical, sociological, and organizational – in the continuum between success and
failure of undocumented immigrant rights mobilizations in immigrant-receiving societies.
The next chapter introduces the existing debates from social movement theory that can
contribute to deeper understanding of the three movements studied in this thesis, evaluating at
the same time the questions left unanswered by theory. Chapter three sketches out the research
design and methodology utilized. In chapter four, detailed background information on the
individual cases is introduced. In chapter five, the findings of the study will be presented and
analyzed, in accordance with the framework outlined in chapter two. Finally, in the concluding
chapter, the research question will be answered with a cross-case comparison of the main
findings using the analytical framework, along with suggestions for further scientific inquiry into
this topic.

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II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 The importance of the urban environment
Much has been written about the strategic role of cities to social movements. Nicholls and
Beaumont (2004) discuss the connection between the urban environment and the upsurge of
social movements by drawing attention to cities as places where mobilizations for social justice
are both spontaneously generated and meticulously organized. Cities have “a particular spatial
structure composed of institutions, mechanisms and norms that govern the practices of those that
it embeds; and [are] a site where certain aspects of multiscaled activities (economics, politics,
culture) become institutionally ﬁxed” (Nicholls & Beaumont, 2004: 110). In other words, they
are the smaller places where mechanisms of diversity, varied economic activity, urban-specific
culture and politics become manifest.
In a 2008 article, Nicholls further points to how “the complexity of large urban systems
and geographic proximity and stability” (pp.656) of place are responsible for increasing the
probability of forging connections between groups with crucial and specialized resources that
can advance collective, mutually-beneficial goals. The latter process is also known as ‘movement
amplification’ (Nicholls, forthcoming) and it illustrates the importance of forging diversified
collaborative networks for movements to flourish. Unlike wider-spread movements, it is argued
that urban social movements specifically foster both strong and weak ties, due to the dense
concentration of diverse groups and individuals in cities at any one time, as well as a general
culture of tolerance and inclusiveness that tends to reign in places where identities are multiple
(Nicholls, 2008; 2009).
Both strong and weak ties within a network are necessary aspects of an effective social
movement and the centrality of networks in forging such ties cannot be undermined (Ibidem).

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Strong ties represent shared norms, trust, emotions and interpretive frameworks (Ibidem) and are
important assets for movements to have, as they guarantee a solid base of risk-takers (Van Laer
& Van Aelst, 2010) who fully stand behind movement goals. Strong ties also help movements
come into contact with groups that have specialized resources and are willing to share them due
to the strength of their bond. Weak ties, on the other hand, help trickle resources down to a larger
number of diversified actors of a network in order to collectively tackle a common problem,
creating interdependencies that strengthen the network as a whole.
These dense networks of varying strength between its links are, in turn, most likely to
occur within geographies where diversity is sufficiently present and the population of ‘the
affected’ as well as their open-minded (potential) allies is sufficiently large. It could be argued
that not all cities lend themselves to this description, although both ‘world cities’ in this thesis
certainly fit the bill. Alliances created through urban networks at the same time imply a certain
reciprocity, which serves to ‘bulk-up’ events whereby ideally groups will participate in each
other’s actions in solidarity, creating greater visibility for shared causes (Nicholls, 2008; 2009).
Having physical, symbolically important locales of contestation as well as the possibility
of linking up with like-minded groups and individuals who can exchange ideas and politicize
new members and allies in the process are undeniable advantages of the urban context for the
upsurge of active social movements. Two of the three cases presented in this thesis are urban-
based, even if their immigration-related grievances are ultimately national-level social problems.
One of them is undeniably national. The variance between the three cases in question will serve
to empirically assess the relationship between cities and social movements.
While cities certainly appear to matter and to play a decisive role in mobilizations, as
facilitators of networking and resource-pooling between resource-poor organizations and

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individuals, mobilizations are often also made up of national organizations that exceed the
boundaries of cities. While the literature covered so far discusses organizations that are rooted in
cities, it tells us less about how these national organizations operate and contribute to movements
in their own right. The following section of this chapter will further explore the types of social
movement organizations – from grassroots to top-down – that tend to arise at different stages of
mobilization and under different context-specific circumstances, offering further insights to the
conditions under which the city can affect mobilizations.
2.2 Modes of organization
Social Movement Organization literature provides insights that allow for deeper understanding
of the distinctions between urban-based and dispersed movements, advancing the discussion on
the types of organizations that exist and arise in each setting and the networks that they form. In
order to understand the logics of Social Movement Organization (SMOs, henceforth) landscapes,
Straggenborg (1988) differentiates between two types: (1) professional organizations, where
decision-making is procedural and occurs through a fixed hierarchy, whereby leaders are paid
career activists, leadership style is somewhat fixed and members are not only made up of those
affected by a cause but also good-doing individuals and organizations that feel morally
compelled to contribute to the cause; and (2) informal organizations, where decision-making and
roles are far more ad hoc, membership is largely volunteer-based and made up of the affected
individuals and communities, whereby chapters of the organization tend to be autonomous and
processes tend to change with new leadership.
Straggenborg (1988) highlights that this harsh division between formalized and informal
SMOs is an ideal type and that most organizations have aspects of both – in particular, as
informal organizations that become formalized usually take small steps in that direction over

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time. These ideal types proved useful for interpreting the types of organizations found in the field
in each of the three cases, especially as they seem to form a progression from full-fledged
professionalized to highly informal and unstructured.
The so-called ‘iron law of oligarchy’ dictates that with increasing professionalization of
SMOs over time, internal bureaucratization and rationalization take over. Eventually, "[…]
social change organizations become dominated by oligarchical leaders who chart a cautious and
conservative course to ensure organizational survival, minimize elite opposition, and maximize
their career chances inside and outside the organization" (Kleidman, 1994: 258). SMOs – and
not only their leaders – too, are said to become increasingly diluted and conservative, no longer
fighting the status quo so much as reproducing it (Zald & Ash, 1966).
In the New York and the Wij Zijn Hier cases, the latter issue proved particularly salient as
grassroots organizations pointed fingers at the most institutionalized SMOs for not being
sufficiently willing to take risks. It is, however, questionable whether growing
institutionalization and bureaucratization necessarily lead to ‘conservatism’ as such (paraphrased
from Zald & Ash, 1966). Informal grassroots organizations may morph into professional
organizations for reasons other than ideological shifts and still maintain a posture that is in line
with the organization’s original views, if more capable of attaining goals from a position of
relative power.
Once formalized, organizations are believed to start to have a more institutional approach
to mobilization, focusing sooner on lobbying legislators than protesting from the outside, simply
because they have the ongoing resources and capacity to do so – i.e. paid staff (Staggenborg,
1988). Staggenborg's (1988) study of pro-choice movements in the United States showed that it
was also possible for informal organizations to engage in lobbying and other forms of

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institutionalized politics, but that their lack of resources meant they often did not rely on these
practices as their primary approach. The opposite is also true: disruptive tactics such as publicly
speaking out on issues and experiences, if initiated by formalized organizations, are likely to lack
the spontaneity and authenticity of those same tactics when they are applied by informal
organizations (Ibidem).
The issue at hand is perhaps that having a rigid internal division of labor and
organizational strategy that maximizes human capital and resources is only really possible for
formal SMOs. Informal SMOs struggle to keep participation from volunteers high, all the while
formalized organizations that have capacity on staff manage to keep issues afloat and are often
treated as more legitimate by funders (Staggenborg, 1988). In other words, the relationship
between bureaucratization and formalization may sooner be due to the fact that the organizations
that can actually afford to hire professionals are those that have formal structures somewhat in
place, and know how to attain resources that require a professionalized and structured approach
(Ibidem).
Yet SMOs with differing levels of formalization, and thus different strengths, could
benefit from collaboration. For instance, McAdam and colleagues (1996) claim the resilience of
social movements is highly dependent on the successful use of, on the one hand, ‘disruptive
tactics’ such as sit-ins and protests, which are the most readily available tool of influence for
SMOs – in the absence of ample resources for e.g. lobbying ; and, on the other hand, ‘radical
flank effects’, which can be roughly summarized as having a radical wing to the movement that
is willing to take high risks and make extreme demands, making the moderate wing of the
movement seem more legitimate and like a better negotiation partner.

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The latter means that formalized SMOs will often capitalize on efforts by informal
organizations that put issues on the broader societal agenda but are not necessarily taken very
seriously. This, in turn, further encourages a progression into bureaucratization (Staggenborg,
1988) by at least some parts of any given movement that, in being seen as adequate negotiation
partners, become further removed from grassroots groups and their tactics. They are rewarded
for their conformist approach. It is arguable that if movement organizations see themselves as
parts of a single ecosystem, then differences in approach do not need to be seen as problematic
and can be rather complementary for furthering collective, if somewhat compromised, goals. The
idea that internal organizational logics can affect how SMOs mobilize is very pertinent to
understanding the complexity of SMO landscapes in all three cases, looking at them as a
continuum as opposed to dichotomous opposites that are normatively ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
The visible differences between grassroots and top-down mobilizing strategies for SMOs,
in the context of having a position of relative power with regards to formal politics, bring us back
to the issue of cities. If urban environments are conducive to the uprisings of the marginalized,
due to an agglomeration of different types of politicized actors in the relatively confined space of
a city, encouraging the formation of networks of activists and organizations that grow together
into full-blown movements, then the city is particularly favorable to very specific types of
movements. The movements and SMOs that already depart from a position of relative power and
legitimacy may, in turn, not need the city to accomplish movement goals at all.
Processes of movement amplification through networks (Nicholls, forthcoming), so
instrumental for driving disturbances of the normalization and acceptance of existing unjust
policies, do not only occur in cities. The difference is that resource-poor organizations are more
likely to require a larger – albeit messier – mass of individuals and groups working together to

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question circumstances in order to be heard. The more diversified the skills of the mass, the
better their chance of success in capitalizing on political opportunities that may arise. The places
most likely to have these individuals in greater number are, in turn, cities.
‘Mobilizing structures’ theory aims at explaining the ‘how’ of social movement
emergence within resource-poor, non-elite groups (Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2000). It claims
that although networks may already exist in a community for other purposes, the success of
translating a network into a mobilization effort lies in a movement’s capacity of appropriating
itself of that network (Ibidem), making the different parts of the network view a social problem
in a way that demands action. It involves the politicization of its members. Disruptive risk-takers
keep movements current at the local level by mobilizing people on the group. Meanwhile,
formalized SMOs depend on funding from backers at all geographic scales and act in accordance
to that need, at times creating some tensions between organizations whose goals are, at face
value, rather similar.
The question that remains unanswered is whether it is possible for organizations to zoom
out of their own agendas and understand a movement as a whole, made up of complementary
parts that can work together from different perspectives and interests. The education and
politicization of members on the causes that they are fighting for on an abstract, structural level
is necessary for such collaboration to be made possible. The ability for movements to capitalize
on efforts made by its different parts is dependent on the context of how their SMOs are
organized: whether they are grassroots or top-down, their level of formalization and the
geographical scale at which they operate.

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2.3 Framing Legitimate Struggle & Seizing Political Opportunities
The literature presented thus far introduces the distinctive functions of formal, de-territorialized
SMOs as well as those of urban-based, informal SMOs in social movements. It says less,
however, about how these different organizational logics help produce different ways of creating
mobilization frames that lead to collective actions and campaigns. ‘Framing’ in social movement
theory refers to a process whereby movements “are not viewed merely as carriers of extant ideas
and meanings that grow automatically out of structural arrangements” (Benford & Snow, 2000:
613) but rather are in the business of turning ‘social issues’ into ‘social problems’. The latter is
accomplished through the deliberate and active engagement in meaning-making by members,
allies and onlookers.
The success of frames is highly dependent ‘cultural resonance’, responsible for
highlighting both the credibility of claim-makers and how their claims fit in with mainstream
notions of social justice in any given society (Ibidem). Defining circumstances as sufficiently
bad while maintaining enough optimism that something can be changed through collective
efforts, is the most important aspect brought on by appropriate framing. Koopmans’ (2004)
‘discursive opportunity structures’ theory reinforces the notion that for mobilizing frames used
by movements to lead to actual change in public perceptions of a movement, they need to reflect
normative and mainstream values already found in society.
A great deal of what movements do when they aim at creating real legislative change is
convince the outside world – often through the use of mass media – that an issue requires
addressing. The issue in question, in order to gain traction, will often fall within existing ideas of
what is ‘right’. Media coverage is one of the very practical ways in which movements do
framing (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). Movements use the media to gain public support and to

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frame their struggles in ways that serve to legitimate them as worthy actors to be contended with
by political elites (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993).
Making an action or statement newsworthy is dependent on a series of considerations that
are the outcome of optimized organization within the movement itself (Gamson & Wolfsfeld,
1993). An unprofessional and disorganized movement is less likely to be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, not coordinating messages and actions with allies can be detrimental to receiving
desired attention from the media (Ibidem). Social movement organizations that do not work
together therefore end up competing for media attention and scattering perceptions of a
movement’s claims, further pointing to the advantages of deliberating with one’s network –
something that, at least for highly diversified movements with many actors who need to keep
each other in the loop, is much more possible inside cities than outside them.
The difficulty in media-movement relationships is that both are in the business of
meaning-making and, in the process of making an issue newsworthy, frames can become
somewhat ‘lost in translation’. This is less of an issue for professional SMOs that specialize in
addressing society, political representatives and the media in ways that lack in spontaneity but
tend to get a message across without too many interceptions – this is particularly true of less
complex movements, with fewer actors involved. Informal and grassroots movements that
encourage spontaneity and boldness, on the other hand, might be better at innovating and making
newsworthy claims and actions but, in turn, lack the ability to control message to the same
degree of professionalism that their formalized counterparts do. Balancing radical claims and
professional political negotiation partners is perhaps the best avenue to guaranteeing desired
media and political attention.

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In sum, different types of organizations do framing differently. Informal urban, grassroots
SMOs are attention-seeking by definition as they lack other entries to the political sphere. Their
repertoires of confronting protests and inventive means for gaining attention are in some ways
harmed by disorganized messaging that reflects the informality at which they operate. At the
other end of the spectrum are the formalized, national and supranational social change
organizations. Their strength lies in sharp and well-defined messaging that originates from
knowledge of how to ‘play’ the political game when approaching media. At the same time,
however, they lack the spontaneity and authenticity that allows for real critique of the status quo.
In efforts to maintain high levels of cultural resonance, working from a discursive opportunities
point of view, formal SMOs can end up being carriers of conformist ideas.
Political opportunity structures literature looks specifically at the role of external factors
that contribute to the creation of political openings for groups that share grievances and believe
that they have a chance of affecting their circumstances through collective action (Koopmans &
Staham, 2000). Any democratic change, such as the temporary weakness of a ruling party or
variant forms of political unrest, can be the defining factors that cause enough of a stir for
aggrieved claims-makers to feel compelled to mobilize their resources and capitalize on
specifically opportune moments. In looking outside of social movements for the causes of their
uprisings, political opportunities literature politicizes movements. Movements and their
emergence are thus contextualized in the political systems of which they are a part (Ibidem).
Movements, in this theory, not only create opportunities through framing, but also often take
shape in response to sudden political opportunities and constraints and only then act to mobilize
their base (Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2000).

16 | P a g e
The literature presented in this conceptual framework is useful but at times contradicting
in terms of understanding what the role of these different aspects is for successful social
movements. For instance: cities are important, yet not all mobilizations occur in cities. Formal
SMOs are efficient but not ideal for creating momentum and informal SMOs are chaotic but are
more likely to succeed in creating disturbances of the current situation: how can they work
together in networks if their approaches are so different? Perhaps most importantly, do they
always do so?
If frames work best when issues are already somewhat mainstream, then how exactly
successful framing leads to the creation of political opportunities remains rather obscure. What
types of frames and claims-makers manage to create such urgency exactly? Moreover, what
happens when competing frames exist simultaneously? These are some the issues and dilemmas
that remain unanswered in the existing literature and that have sparked the study proposed in this
thesis. Table 1 offers an overview of the main concepts that form the theoretical basis for
analysis of the empirical data collected for this thesis. The three cases presented in chapter five
are themselves full of dilemmas and contradictions but, collectively, add interesting to our
understanding of the logics behind mobilizations of different kinds and what makes them more
or less successful. Prior to more detailed discussions on the cases, the following section will
outline the research design of this study.

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Table 1. Theoretical Framework
Degree of
formalization
Possibility of
scaling up
Sources of power Capacities Limits/Dilemmas Framing
High National/
Supranational
Access to political
allies, funders,
media
Scale up,
access to major
resources,
lobbying,
organized, etc.
Lack of
innovation,
conformity (need
to maintain good
access to formal
politics), distance
from activists /
grassroots
organizations
Tight centralized
framing, but
somewhat
conformist –
reproduce
systemic norms
rather than
challenging them
Low Urban Good relations
with locals and
the affected
population
Succeed in
getting high
numbers of
dedicated
activists,
innovation,
disruptive
tactics
Challenging of
categories makes
support for causes
difficult, lacking
access to formal
politics and funds,
chaos of activities
Innovative and
challenging
framing but
somewhat
chaotic and
difficult to
control

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III. RESEARCH DESIGN
3.1 Research Question
The main research question guiding this thesis asks “To what extent is the urban environment a
sufficient condition for facilitating the active mobilization of undocumented immigrants in New
York City and the Amsterdam region?” In asking how influential the urban environment is for
the active and participatory mobilization of undocumented immigrants, the question at the same
time asks to what extent the city context does not underlie these types of mobilization. It further
asks whether it is sufficient that a movement takes place in a single urban geographic location for
it to achieve success. The main independent variable becomes ‘the urban context’ while the main
dependent variable is the ‘active mobilization of undocumented immigrants’.
Subsidiary questions that follow from the main research question are: (1) “When is the
urban environment not a sufficient or even necessary condition for the active mobilization of
undocumented immigrants?” inquiring about the cases where the city does not seem to matter;
and (2) “In what contexts is the ‘active mobilization’ of undocumented immigrants facilitated
and in what contexts is it hindered?” looking at the circumstances that are conducive and the
ones that are discouraging of the participation of affected populations.
3.2 Case Selection
This thesis examines three cases, one in New York City and two in the Netherlands, of which
one in Amsterdam. Reviewing literature on social movement organizations that stresses the
added value for movements of marginalized groups to be located in cities in turn raises questions
about whether territorialization is in fact so central to the success of this type of mobilization. To
test the latter issue, the three cases selected represent differing levels of urbanization, from
highly urbanized to entirely de-territorialized (see table 1). Classic social movement theory also

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claims that institutionalizations and professionalization of organizations that started off as
grassroots is somewhat of an inevitable outcome, with the consequence that movement
organizations begin to reproduce – rather than question – the status quo. With the latter in mind,
the three cases have divergent levels of both variables – i.e. territorialization and degree of
formalization (see table 2).
Table 2. Cases
Case Location Geographic
Scale
Types of Organizations Professionalization
& Institutionalization
Dreamers New York City Hybrid
Urban, State
&
National
Community Organizations MIXED
Kinderpardon Netherlands National Professional NGOs &
Political Parties
HIGH
Wij Zijn Hier Amsterdam Urban Local Religious Groups,
Immigrant Service Orgs
& Individuals
LOW
The Dreamers of New York City are first-generation childhood arrivals to the United States who
grew up essentially American without ever having had legal status. The bill that was supposed to
legalize their status, known at the Dream Act, failed at the federal level in 2010. Since then, the
different groups have been trying to pass local-level policy in the state of New York that would
grant these young immigrants financial aid for higher education. The movement is made up of
very diverse organizations with differing levels of professionalization, from very grassroots and
volunteer-run to well-funded, immigrant service-providing historical institutions of New York.
Professionalization and Institutionalization aside, the Dream movement consists primarily of
community organizations and the young immigrants claim to speak for themselves.
The Kinderpardon or ‘children’s pardon’ is a Dutch law aimed at legalizing the status of
asylum-seeking children who had lived in – and in some cases were even born in – the
Netherlands awaiting asylum procedures, for any period longer than 5 years while minors. The

20 | P a g e
bill was originally introduced by two opposition parties – although one of them is now in
government – and was designed in consultation with highly professionalized national and
international nonprofits. Some individual cases of affected children were very highly publicized
and gained a lot of media and political attention, but the children were represented by interest
groups and not ‘empowered’ drivers of change like their New York counterparts. The
Kinderpardon was very much a national movement aimed at influencing national-level policy.
The last case is the Wij Zijn Hier action group that started as an occupation of public
space by failed asylum seekers/refugees in Amsterdam who claimed to have no possibility of
returning to their countries of origin. By camping outdoors for two months, the group made its
struggle visible to the media, local and national authorities, but also to the people of Amsterdam,
many of whom have become invaluable allies to the movement.
While national religious organizations and some political parties offered backhand
support to the movement, none of the large professional immigrant rights nonprofits got involved
with the protest directly or explicitly. As a result, aside from the refugees, the movement is made
up mainly of individual volunteers, loosely-bound political anarchists and local religious groups.
They are urban-based and have successfully occupied several empty spaces throughout the city
in their short history, always with the help of the squatter movement of Amsterdam. The levels
of professionalization and certainly institutionalization have always been very low.

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3.3 Methodology
3.3.1 Methods and Sampling
For the first two cases, the first research method employed was a newspaper analysis. The
articles analyzed for the New York case were from The New York Times and ranged from early
2010 to late 2012, when the federal DREAM act was being advocated for and the period after it
failed. The period after its failure is a key moment, as it is marked by relentless undocumented
youth groups aiming for the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that eventually
granted those eligible the right to request temporary legal stay and work permits in the United
States.
The newspaper analysis of the Kinderpardon case was of the Dutch Volkskrant for the
contentious period of two years ranging from beginning 2011 through the end of 2012 in which a
few individual cases were highly publicized and publicity campaigns were being launched to
support an eventual pardon for asylum-seeking children. All articles containing the key words
utilized – “Dream Act” and “Kinderpardon”, respectively – were compiled in an MS Office
Excel document into different variables that were later coded and counted in order to identify
key players and trends. It should be noted that both of these national newspapers are considered
quality press publications, and have a circulation of 2,378,8271
and 742.0002
, respectively.
The analyses of the newspapers served primarily as sampling strategies, in order to
establish which organizations needed to be included in the interviews. As an unintended
consequence, however, reading articles on the history of both movements proved very helpful for
developing interview questions, contextualizing findings and better understanding the picture
1
30-04-2013 “NY Times Circulation Jumps 18 Percent, Daily News and Post See Declines”
<http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/ny-times-circulation-jumps-18-percent-daily-news-and-post-see-
declines_b81655 >
2
“Oplage en Bereikcijfers” <http://www.cebuco.nl/dagbladen/oplage_en_bereik_cijfers> Cebucco, 2012

22 | P a g e
painted by respondents about their involvement in the movements. While no such analysis was
conducted for the last case, one similar analysis had been previously conducted for a comparable
study and was consulted prior to initiating any interviews with these actors as well. It should also
be noted that while the sampling strategy was a good place to initiate the interviews, respondents
were always questioned about who else should be interviewed and each of these ‘leads’ was
followed up – albeit with varying levels of success.
The central method of the present study is a series of semi-structured in-depth qualitative
interviews with different stakeholders – individuals, representatives of organizations, political
figures, etc. – that have somehow been involved in the three cases studied. The questions focused
on three main areas: (1) personal characteristics, such as educational level and ethnicity/whether
someone had a migration background; (2) political engagement, particularly inquiring about how
they had come to hold whatever position they do
in the movement and/or the organization that they
represent; (3) network-related questions
regarding how different actors in the movement
had collaborated/collaborate to achieve common
goals, therewith also positioning one’s own
organization/self in the network; (4) the role of
new media for the movement as a whole and for
individuals/organizations.
The findings in this study are based on a total of thirty-five interviews. Fourteen
interviews were conducted in New York City, with five of the most prominent organizations in
the undocumented youth movement. These were: New York State Youth Leadership Council,

23 | P a g e
United We Dream Network, Make the Road New York, Minkwon Center for Community action
and RAISE – Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast (see: Figure
1).
In the Netherlands, nine interviews were
conducted for the Kinderpardon case with a
wide range of organizations from international
NGOs to policy advisors of parliamentary
sponsors of the original bill that was to grant
stay for the children who ended up being
eligible for the Kinderpardon, to independent
government agencies. These were as follows:
Defense for Children, Vluchtelingenwerk,
UNICEF, Stichting Landelijke
Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt – LOS, Kerk in Actie, a former parlamentarian for Groenlinks,
policy advisors in migration and asylum for
ChristenUnie and Partij van de Arbeid and the
Kinderombudsman (see: Figure 2). It should be
noted that these interviews were conducted in Dutch
and translated by the author.
For the Wij Zijn Hier case, only four
interviews of the aforementioned format were
conducted with volunteers in the movement. The
remainder of the data used for analyzing this case – eight interviews in total, as well as the

24 | P a g e
newspaper analysis – was collected for a similar study and was kindly made available by the
researcher for the purpose of this thesis. They included four refugee activists, ASKV Steunpunt
Vluchtelingen, Amnesty International, Stichting Landelijke Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt –
LOS and Kerk in Actie. All of the interviews were fully transcribed and analyzed using codes
derived in part from the theory and in part from the data, using Atlas T.I. (see: Figure 3).
3.3.2 Respondent Selection and Access
As mentioned above, the selection of stakeholders to approach was at least partially the product
of the newspaper analyses. The remainder of those approached consisted of suggestions from
interviewees themselves. The self-selection bias was high in the New York case because there
simply were many more actors in the movement overall and thus many more that could have
agreed to an interview and ultimately chose not to participate. The same goes for Wij Zijn Hier,
where only those volunteers who responded positively to the emails submitted to the group’s
mailing list by the first respondent were interviewed specifically for this study. In the case of the
Kinderpardon, there were far fewer actors to be contended with and each organization appeared
to have at best one person dedicated to the theme. Each time again the same names were named
and it could be said rather confidently that all of the main stakeholders were interviewed for this
research.
3.4 Limitations
Comparative research of three rather diverse cases taking place in different national and local
institutional contexts, occurring at different geographical scales, with different types of actors
can make for very exciting studies but will inevitably raise the issue of whether such a
comparison is at all possible. The relevance of comparative studies is to problematize that which

25 | P a g e
is seen as normal in one context by contrasting it with a different situation. This thesis
acknowledges that the latter is better accomplished if some liberties regarding comparability of
situations are tolerated. New York is not Amsterdam and Amsterdam is an exceptional case in
the Netherlands. In spite of their differences, these cases show many nuances when contrasted
that may not have been so clear if they were observed on their own.
Keeping in mind the limited amount of interviews conducted and the small-N approach to
case selection characteristic of qualitative studies, making generalizations was never the key aim
of this thesis. Yet some careful attempt was ultimately made to do so, in particular regarding the
causal model used to answer the research question. While it may have been overly ambitious to
generalize at all, international cross-case comparisons afford some very interesting insights that
at the very least should encourage further research as to whether such a causal model proves true
in different scenarios. In the following chapter, background information on the cases is provided
in order to contextualize the findings in chapter five.

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IV. CASE DESCRIPTIONS
4.1 New York City Dreamers
The so-called ‘Dreamers’ are members of the undocumented youth movement whose name
derived from the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. While this
federal-level bill failed to pass in the United States Senate in 2010, the population that was
supposed to benefit under it – made up of college-attending, aspiring or college-educated
undocumented young immigrants who grew up ‘American’ without legal status – continued to
change the way undocumented minors are viewed and treated in the United States by law. At the
time of the senate vote, the DREAM Act offered some much needed hope to members of a lost
generation of undocumented youth who found in it the motivation and political voice to continue
to strive for their ‘American dream’ (Carolan-Silva and Reyes, 2012). At the time, and to a
certain degree still today, DREAM mobilization became something of a haven for all of the brain
waste that resulted from the exclusion of these highly educated quasi-Americans with little
access to the professional labor market (Nicholls, 2013).
When discussing the mobilization of undocumented minors in the United States, it is
important to realize that children are granted access to education regardless of documentation
status (Carolan-Silva and Reyes, 2012). Moreover, the legal status of school-aged children and
adolescents is protected by privacy laws (Gonzales, 2011) granting undocumented minors the
possibility of leading a fairly normal life until the end of high school. The privacy laws that once
allowed undocumented youths to lead somewhat ‘normal’ lives seize to exist at eighteen.
Gonzales (2011) frames this ‘coming of age’ of undocumented children as the period in which
they enter a stage of a sort of conscious ‘illegality’.

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The role of such inclusive government policy regarding education cannot be
overemphasized as it is particularly important in determining the economic, civic and social
assimilation of this immigrant youth (Abrego, 2006). Having grown up in the United States with
an American education, and possessing a concentration of cultural and social capital not always
associated with immigrants’ rights movements (Nicholls, 2013), Dreamers have had a lot of
political traction in public discourse. Their ‘deservingness’ of staying in the United States is
almost unquestionable.
One of the most important changes that have occurred since the start of the DREAM
movement is the administrative relief known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA). It is a temporary two-year work permit that also keeps beneficiaries from being
deported from the United States. Even though DACA, unlike the DREAM Act, is not a path to
regularizing residency status, it has significantly improved the conditions under which this
generation lives and works in the United States. It is an undeniable victory of the DREAM
movement. All of the individuals interviewed for this study – even those who are not particularly
positive about it – believe that DACA represents the political maturity of the groups that applied
pressure on the United States president to guarantee it. These groups targeted the Obama
administration at the correct time, with the right sort of leverage: if it wanted the Latino vote in
the 2012 election, Obama had no choice but to find a solution for Dreamers.
Besides pushing for an administrative relief, the failure of the federal DREAM Act also
meant a strategic shift for Dream mobilizations: the geographic scale of contention changed. The
focus shifted – for some community organizations almost entirely – to the local level. Smaller,
state-level bills that could grant undocumented youth rights became the primary goal of the
movement. In New York, the bill that the local Dream movement is trying to pass is known as

28 | P a g e
the ‘New York DREAM Act’ and would grant undocumented – and DACA recipient – students
access to state tuition assistance for higher education. The main challenge faced by those trying
to pass the bill is that New York City is essentially a liberal and democratic ‘island’ surrounded
by a state government that is conservative and that sees undocumented youth as an urban
problem. There is little interest on the part of state legislators elected in the rest of the state of
New York to spend tax income on what is essentially seen as a New York City problem.
The New York undocumented youth movement is made up of organizations with
differing levels of institutionalization and professionalization. Yet all New York-based
organizations included in this study are formalized to some degree, with all of them having at
least some professional paid staff – even if part time and officially still part of the ‘affected
population’.
United We Dream is a national-level organization that is made up of so called ‘affiliate
organizations’ that operate at the state and urban level. In New York, the organizations that are
part of this network are: (1) Make the Road New York, an important institution that advocates
for immigrant rights – mostly Latino, and also in the context of e.g. organized labor – while also
providing services to immigrant communities; and (2) the Minkwon Center for Community
Action, a Korean-American organization from Queens that offers specific services for the local
community and also advocates for immigrant rights.
The Program Director from United We Dream (UWD, henceforth) interviewed for this
study has worked at the Minkwon Center (TMC, henceforth) prior to his role at UWD in the
exact role now held by the youth organizer from TMC that was interviewed for study. Two
employees of Make the Road New York (MTR, henceforth) are active as members of UWD and
the most senior of them was one of the founders, together with the UWD program coordinator

29 | P a g e
and a few other individuals, of the New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC,
henceforth). The YLC left the UWD network shortly after the failure of the federal DREAM Act
due to a claimed change in vision. The YLC, MTR and TMC are, however, in a formal coalition
to pass the New York Dream Act. This coalition faces some difficulties in trying to bring
together the more professionalized – organizations such as MTR and TMC – and the more
grassroots community organizations – organizations such as the YLC. On the whole, in order to
be heard, however discordant they become, these organizations have no choice but to pool
resources to try to look for political openings under which they may be able to sway support
from up-state New York legislators.

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4.2 Kinderpardon
The Kinderpardon is a regulation stipulated in the coalition agreement between the
governing parties in the current parliament of the Netherlands – the liberal center-right VVD and
the labor center-left PvdA – aimed at legalizing the status of asylum-seeking children who had
lived in or were born in the Netherlands awaiting asylum procedures for any period longer than 5
years while being minors3
. Siblings and parents of Kinderpardon beneficiaries are also able to
regularize their status under the provision4
. Before the Kinderpardon was enforced, the PvdA and
ChristenUnie – then both opposition parties – introduced a bill under the name of Kinderasielwet
to address a problem that their respective parliament groups were consistently being confronted
with: children facing deportation after having lived in an asylum request limbo for most if not all
of their young lives. Educators, churches, parents, friends, mayors and, tirelessly, the NGO
Defense for Children, were pressuring the left wing of Dutch politics to come up with a solution
for this predicament.
The PvdA originally drafted the bill and, together with ChristenUnie, presented it to
many of the nonprofits included in this study in order to fine-tune its parameters. At the time, the
left parties did not have a majority in the parliament. Although the Christian center party CDA
was in the governing coalition, so was the most far-right party in the Netherlands making it a
particularly difficult time for humane immigration bills to pass. Even with all left-leaning parties
supporting the bill, there was little chance that it would pass without support from one of the
majority parties.
It is worth noting that unlike what was presented about contentious politics of social
movements in the theoretical framework, the Netherlands is home to a deliberative, consensual,
3
‘Het Kinderpardon’, de Kinderombudsman http://www.dekinderombudsman.nl/223/ visited on 04-05-2014
4
Ibidem

31 | P a g e
corporatist governance system whereby interest groups are represented in systematic and
formalized ways, and included in formal politics to a large degree (Kickert, 2003).
Representatives of highly professionalized human and immigrant rights NGOs often have a ‘seat
at the table’ in discussions regarding the constituencies that they represent. These agents tend to
be consulted when policy is being developed in their fields of advocacy and lobbying, and their
voices are likely to be acknowledged without the need of messy SMO coalitions where
disagreements prevail – unlike their New York counterparts. The down-side of this system is that
these highly institutionalized NGOs end up working as part of the state apparatus, adopting some
state procedures and points of view, as well as categorizations.
At the same time that the two parties were designing and sponsoring this bill, a few cases
of rooted children became highly publicized in the national media. A member of the left-wing
greens Groenlinks parliament group, responsible for asylum and immigration within is his then
party, launched a website and a publicity campaign to garner signatures from civilians in support
of what he branded as the Kinderpardon. Aside from rebranding the existing bill, he was
responsible for a full-fledged marketing stunt with multiple phases. After the website launch, he
arranged for national celebrity endorsements of the campaign, created a very sentimental video5
that went viral asking for support for the cause and ultimately collected signatures from more
than one-hundred and twenty mayor from the entire country in support of the bill. Although both
the ChristenUnie and the PvdA were less than pleased to see their bill ‘hijacked’, both
respondents from those parties admitted that without this campaign at the opportune time of the
highly publicized asylum cases that touched the nation, such a relief for these children could
have taken much longer to come in effect.
5
“ Deze kinderen horen hier! Kinderpardon.nu” 26/01/2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBwiQrQl-Lk,
visited on 13/06/2014

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Once the cabinet fell and elections were held where the left-leaning parties had not only
one of the largest parties in the parliament but also a majority, it became clear that, in one way or
another, the bill was going to pass. The entry of the PvdA into the coalition with the VVD meant
that they were able to negotiate the Kinderpardon so it would not require a vote – even if it came
at the cost of other humane policy for undocumented people. The implementation of the
Kinderpardon, however, is currently receiving a lot of criticism. It is believed to have been made
explicitly harsh so as to keep the number of beneficiaries as low as possible. The Kinderpardon
is the most formal and institutionalized of the three cases, with the least amount of actors
involved, all of whom are embedded in formal politics to a certain degree – from political parties
to often-consulted international nonprofits (see Figure 2).

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4.2 Wij Zijn Hier
The Wij Zijn Hier group began as a protest by rejected asylum seekers who started occupying
public space in Amsterdam claiming that they had been denied asylum in spite of being unable to
return to their countries of origin. Two months into the protest camping outdoors, the site was
evacuated by Amsterdam police. The group was moved into a vacant squatted church where they
stayed for approximately half a year from late 2012 to mid-20136
. Without structural or formal
assistance from local or national authorities, the group relied primarily on donations and
assistance from fellow Amsterdammers to survive.
With the help of Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland, the municipality of Amsterdam gained
access to a head-count of refugees living in the church location. Participation in the head-count
was voluntary and was openly part of an effort from the Dutch authorities to separate the group
and assess them as individuals, whose asylum requests could be reviewed per case7
. The refugees
insisted on being seen as a group but nonetheless many of them signed up to the list. Although
the group was eventually evicted from the church, they continued to occupy – and get evicted
from – other squatted locations all over the city for the following half year. Each squat was
coordinated by the squatter movement of Amsterdam and made livable with the help of allies,
many of whom from local religious organizations, but most of whom simply individuals: from
independent immigrant rights activists to fellow sympathizing urban dwellers.
The group’s main victory to date came at the end of the year 2013, when the municipality
of Amsterdam offered temporary shelter in a former prison and a food budget to the 159 refugees
that had been on the list8
. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of refugees who joined the
movement continued to grow throughout this process meaning that not all who were part of the
6
“Where we go”, Wij Zijn Hier, http://wijzijnhier.org/where/, visited on 01-04-2014
7
“Hulp vluchtelingen per geval”, Jasper Karman, Het Parool, 04-04-2013
8
“Na het Vluchtkantoor valt de groep uit elkaar”, HEIBA TARGHI BAKKALI, Het Parool, 03-12-2013

34 | P a g e
group at that point were offered shelter. The Amsterdam tent camp was not the first of its kind in
the Netherlands, but it certainly was the most successful in terms of resilience over time. The
latter did not go unnoticed. With the publicized spectacle that formed around the group in
national media and politics, more people started coming out of the shadows and joining the
protest – some of whom had been undocumented for years, roaming homelessly on the streets of
different cities in the Netherlands.
The new and old group were split up, as the former settled in a squatted garage and the
latter received formal, albeit temporary, accommodation from the municipality. The initial group
had leaders who were refugees and spoke often in the media and at events, representing
themselves. The new group struggled to find the same sort of politicization in its leaders and
became highly reliant on volunteers. The operations at the second location are completely
volunteer-run and the men are for the most part rather dependent, surviving day by day on the
kindness of their fellow Amsterdammers.
The movement is wholly urban-based and the level of professionalization and certainly
institutionalization has always been very low. Interestingly – keeping in mind the Kinderpardon
model that fully fulfills the expectation in a corporatist system whereby interest groups are
consulted on discussions of social justice for which they advocate – none of the large,
professional immigrant rights nonprofits became involved with this cause directly. They have
offered backstage support and some organizations have run the accommodation of the refugees
financially, but not one of them took on the cause of these refugees as their own.
The group’s illegitimacy as claims-makers in the eyes of formal politics becomes evident
by this refusal from formal NGOs to become involved with them. It is likely that this also is
exacerbated by their own refusal to accept their circumstances as rejected asylum seekers and

35 | P a g e
collaborate with their own deportation, making them into risky partners for organizations that
have fairly decent amounts of access to formal politics by complying with national laws and
policy and attempting to change it, not break it.
Marginalized and undocumented immigrants – certainly those who move as adults with
little perspective of legal stay – often lack the social and cultural capital, as well as the resources
to navigate the local political system. Meanwhile, legitimate claims-makers, such as recognized
interest groups, do not know how to cope with the lack of clarity about whom exactly makes up a
group such as Wij Zijn Hier. Ironically, it could be argued that it is because they fall through the
cracks of the asylum system and have no specific state-assigned categorization that they fall
through the cracks of representation by what the government might consider ‘legitimate
negotiation partners’.

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V. FINDINGS
In this chapter, empirical evidence from the three cases is presented in accordance with the
analytical concepts central to this thesis introduced in the theoretical framework in chapter two –
see also table 1. For the sake of clarity in the three-case comparison, the analysis of each of the
cases will follow the same logic: (1) an introductory analysis of the local context, (2) an analysis
of the organizational characteristics of the movements and SMOs studied; (3) an analysis of the
effect of organizational characteristics on mobilization capacities and framing strategies of the
groups and of the movements as a whole; and finally (4) an analysis of the limitations and
dilemmas associated with each different organizational type, its mobilizing frames and capacity
provided the local context.
5.1 New York City Dreamers
The local context. New York City is a city of immigrants. It is home to the harbor through which
generations of new Americans have entered their new homeland. Immigrants have defined the
essence of the city and continue to color neighborhoods and streets with cultural manifestations
of all sorts. The De Blasio campaign that was taking place during the fieldwork for this thesis,
between Caribbean street carnivals and trips to Chinatown, often looked more like a trip around
the world than a local election. Signs at election polls were found in least three languages at a
time. Unlike many places in the world, being an immigrant in New York is not the exception: it
is practically the rule.
The New York SMO landscape in the DREAM movement is ample and diverse, given
the sheer number of immigrant organizations of different types, histories and sizes present in the
city. This hybrid case of grassroots and top-down mixing is symptomatic of the city’s immigrant

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composition and immigrant-friendly institutional context, where community organizations have
proliferated since the city’s early days as an immigrant-receiving place. The activists of the
undocumented youth movement also know this to be true.
“In many ways, like, you know, New York is considered, like, a sanctuary city. Immigrants can
come whether they’re documented or undocumented and they can live! And in some ways, not
totally, but somewhat, prosper.” (Program Director, United We Dream)
Being an undocumented immigrant in New York has advantages that are taken somewhat for
granted by New Yorkers. When undocumented students move into the city they realize the ease
with which they can function. The city’s inclusive transportation structures, close proximity to
different nodes and diversity of occupations of its residents – removing immediate social stigma
certain professions may have had elsewhere because someone ought to keep Manhattan moving
– are not secondary issues for marginalized populations. As observed by Nicholls and Beaumont
(2004), the presence of such characteristics makes the urban environment a welcoming place.
“In terms of the spatial geography, I think that like everything is way more compact and people
have a lot more mobility, in comparison to somewhere like Maryland where everything is really
spread out. You have ethnic communities that are enclaves but they’re in the suburbs and
everybody drives and even though there are restaurants and stuff, most people who migrate there
or are settled there are migrating based on STEM visas right? […] There’s like a class thing too.”
(Youth organizer, RAISE)
Mobility without the need for a driver’s license is a great New York privilege that allows
undocumented immigrants to get around without the need for falsified documents. However,
spite of many positive aspects to the city as a space where undocumented immigrants can
function, New York City is surrounded by a state government that is highly conservative.
“[…] we have a state senate that is just stopping everyone’s bills. No progressive bill has passed
in New York in, like, 2 years because of the senate that we have.” (Senior youth organizer, Make
the Road New York; Board member, United We Dream)

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Republican control of the State Senate means there is little interest, especially from legislators
elected up state, to spend tax money on what is essentially viewed as an urban problem. The
education bill known at the New York Dream Act (NYDA, for short) has never left the ground,
at least in part due to this lack of political support at the state level.
It is in this rather conflicted environment that the different SMOs that make up the New
York Dream movement attempt to pass state-level policy and legislation that will benefit
undocumented youth. Even relatively powerful nonprofit organizations are outsiders of the
formal political system and therefore unable to accomplish policy goals without a network.
Networks of actors that are too distinct can be chaotic and this case is no exception. Tactics
differ, as do discourses and at times even goals. The following section on the organizational
landscape of the movement will further this point.
Organizational Landscape. As previously mentioned, earlier this chapter and in chapter 4, New
York is representative of a best-and-worst-of-both worlds situation whereby the SMO landscape
for the Dream movement is exceptionally diverse. The four organizations that participated in this
study (see Figure 1) range from grassroots, relatively small and modestly-budgeted with only
two people on staff – i.e. the New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC) – to significantly
large, well-funded, multi-sited throughout the different New York boroughs and highly
professionalized – i.e. Make the Road New York (MTR). The two other organizations are
professionalized and well-funded ethnically-organized organizations – the Minkwon Center
(TMC) is Korean-American and RAISE is Pan-Asian.
The YLC is decidedly urban-based but attempts to affect legislation at the state level. The
same goes for MTR and TMC, although they are based in largely Latino and Korean
neighborhoods – respectively – in Queens and therefore have more of a clear immigrant services

39 | P a g e
role at a very micro level as well as their political activities. RAISE is an organ of the highly
institutionalized and professionalized Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
(AALDEF) which is a national organization. Technically, however, RAISE advocates for all of
the East Coast of the United States. It is a technicality in the sense that they are essentially
representing New York in response to a Pan-Asian-American group that operates from Los
Angeles. RAISE, through AALDEF, also provides immigrant services. The YLC is mostly
volunteer-run and RAISE, although it has paid staff and funding from a major national
organization, depends on volunteers for the stories that they document and have thus far been the
focus of their efforts. RAISE is not part of the NYDA Coalition but it offers ally-based support
to YLC in the coalition, adding to it the ‘voice’ of undocumented Asians.
The split between organizational types in New York is reflected on their national-level
allegiances as well. The United We Dream network (UWD, henceforth), of which TMC and
MTR are a part, is a membership-run nonprofit operating from different parts of the country but
has its focus currently on national-level policy in Washington DC. They support their ‘affiliates’
on local-level endeavors but have become a highly professionalized advocacy organization. At
the other end lies the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, of which the YLC is a ‘sister
organization’. Although not even the latter relationship is without conflict, they believe in
undocumented-run, flat organizations that focus on contentious politics and ludic actions rather
than NGO-style organizations with hierarchies and ‘compromised’ goals. Self-representation,
empowerment and the use of narrative are at the forefront of their organizational style.
“[The YLC] is mostly an organization led by undocumented youth for the youth. It’s not like some
other organizations where you see people already have their status they’re American citizens or
residents and they tell people what to do. We don’t do that. The YLC is a free will kind of
organization where the kids actually feel like family. Together we're complementary and together

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we aspire for out single goal which is to get the New York Dream Act passed.” (Core member 1,
YLC)
“We're an undocumented led organization where undocumented people make the decisions. We're
volunteer-run, and they’re [UWD] more run by people who get paid. People who are not
undocumented, but who are allies in the sense that they’re getting paid for this. And they have
citizenship so this really doesn’t affect them. We never really know how dedicated they will be...
Because you know, I understand you see our point of view but it’s still different from experiencing
like… working your whole life really hard knowing that this is going to affect your life!” (Core
member 4, YLC)
Even the ‘new kid on the block’, RAISE, although funded by an important New York nonprofit,
sees itself as undocumented-run.
“The decision-making is sort of undocumented youth driven, the messaging is undocumented
youth driven, AALDEF provides a space and also resources for us to be able to organize, assemble
and also just be able to develop like our platform.” (Youth organizer, RAISE)
The need to distinguish one’s organization from the truly institutional kind that is supposedly
distant from its affected community runs deep in the New York social movement organizational
landscape. This division between undocumented-youth-run and documented or even immigrant
adult-run organizations is very central to the difficulties experienced within the NYDA coalition.
These tensions within the coalition are product of an organizational landscape where both top-
down and grassroots approaches have little choice but to collaborate. This latter point will be
explored in more detail in the following section where the mobilization and framing strategies of
the different types of organizations will be discussed in greater detail.
Mobilization and Framing. Aside from composition, degree of professionalization and funding
– all important issues that affect mobilization capacity – the New York organizations further vary
in terms of their methods for mobilizing. The more institutionalized organizations, such as MTR,
take a more calculating approach based mostly on lobbying and taking the political climate into

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account. For instance, in order to circumvent the hostile state senate in New York and still
accomplish something for undocumented students, MTR had originally come up with a private
scholarship fund rather than the state-funded Tuition Assistance Program proposed in NYDA.
The latter decision was not without consequence and has set the stage for a lot of conflict
between the different organizations that are now trying to pass the new bill together.
“For the New York Dream Act, they didn’t really support it the first time it came out. They came
up with their private fund and that’s why also all these other things that have happened, we could
have passed the NYDA by now. But bringing up another bill? “Oh, it’s easier for republicans to
want to vote for it because it’s just private money going to it, nothing to do with the state
government.” And from that a lot of people’s lives have been affected. […] They’re a big
organization they could have worked together with us, supported us. But they put something on
the table that shouldn’t have been there… It’s like: why?” (Core member 3, YLC)
The YLC is aware that institutionalized organizations operate under different conditions but take
little of their concerns on board, dismissing their approach as dated, disempowering and
ineffective. From the point of view of some of the more professional coalition partners, on the
other hand, the YLC’s tactics are somewhat erratic and not always extremely productive. The
differences in approach mean that network often struggles to see eye-to-eye. The mistrust from
the YLC is at times reciprocated by the newer generation of MTR as well.
“I'm not involved in the NYDA campaign for the coalition because there's just a lot of crazy
organizations in there and how I see how they move forward at the end it's just not the way that…
it is not the same vision sometimes. I guess that's the conflict between this coalition, but yeah.
There are good organizations and super bad organizations that do crazy actions. What I think is
that we don't fight together and we're not going to move forward with them” (Youth organizer,
Make the Road New York; National Coordinator, United We Dream)
Meanwhile, the YLC’s sense of urgency about passing this education bill is in many ways one of
the few reasons that the NYDA continues to be any sort of priority for the coalition, especially
taking into account how little enthusiasm there has been for the bill from state legislators.

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“The priorities of their organizations will move according to the political spectrum. If they believe
this bill is likely to be passed, they'll say yeah, let’s work on this. […] But the other organizations
believe it’s going to be really hard so it’s not even on their agenda. Republicans are in control and
they don’t think it’s feasible or strategically wise to go for the NYDA right now. We're in total
opposition for that! We believe it isn’t about whether it’s strategically possible. We believe it’s
our fight and we have to keep fighting for that.” (Core member 1, YLC)
“We are always sort of like the rebel side. We're not that rebellious, we just feel like we're an
undocumented youth-led organization we shouldn’t be told what documented people do, right?
Because it’s not affecting them, it’s affecting us.” (Core member 5, YLC)
“The coalition had sent us their agenda of how they were going to pass the NYDA this year but it
was nothing! We saw it at a committee meeting because we had to figure out how we can pass it
and it said like, “if it doesn’t pass then we'll go for election year”. So what, they’re already saying
is that it’s not going to pass? Because they want to pass a new law, which is awesome like I
support this too, for driver’s licenses, and I’m like… We can work on both things together! But
the NYDA is not a priority again? How much longer to these students need to wait?” (Core
member 3, YLC)
The lack of discipline and conformity to procedures on the part of the grassroots mobilizations
are not always entirely dismissed as ‘crazy’, as the youth organizer at MTR and National
Coordinator at UWD suggested. One seasoned MTR activist remembers a time when this
division between the more tame and the most radical groups used to benefit the movement – very
much a ‘radical flank effect’ story (McAdam et al, 1996) – but also pinpoints what eventually
caused the demise of this type of fruitful collaboration.
“The Dream Is Coming was created while everybody was working together, and I honestly
thought it was brilliant! Because they staged the first civil disobedience and they were under a
different umbrella so we were able to sit at the table and say “we have no idea what you’re talking
about”! While we did know exactly what was happening and we knew they were doing different
actions […] to me it was like the perfect scenario; but after a while because those actions were so
powerful they started saying: well, everything is moving because of us.” (Senior youth organizer,
Make the Road New York; Board member, United We Dream)

43 | P a g e
The point made above is relevant still today in the sense that these organizations continue to – at
least officially – collaborate. The NYDA coalition should be able to capitalize on this same type
of cooperation where groups such as MTR and TMC do not lose their legitimacy and continue to
follow procedural approaches while a group such as the YLC radicalizes, bringing attention to
issues while simultaneously making the first group seem even more legitimate to the legislators
that have the power to advance movement goals. The debate about which group does things the
correct way is the root of much of the tensions that exist between the members of the coalition
and is ultimately rather unproductive.
The disagreements about a right and wrong way to mobilize are further exacerbated by
the main method that is used by all organizations to recruit new young activists and, at the same
time, to lobby politicians: narratives. Dreamers are a generation of highly educated young people
who share multiple struggles: they often come from undocumented or mixed-status working
class homes; they grew up in fear of being ‘outed’ as undocumented; they had or are having a
hard time financing their college education; and they have, at multiple times, against all odds, in
spite of uncertainty over their futures, managed to find the motivation to carry on pursuing it.
This invincibility narrative and the act of discovering that they are not alone are potentially life-
changing events.
Narratives therefore encourage participation and are empowering acts of politicization of
this shared experience of being a ‘Dreamer’. The vast majority of interviewees were attracted to
the movement by stories that they heard in events of the organizations they ultimately joined.
New York is a place where these narratives come together and where these young activists were
able to find themselves in the stories of others. It is a place where they have the opportunity to
discover that they are not alone and join a fight for their rights.

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“Stories are really powerful and it helps to feel a connection between the people and build a safe
space. The LGBTQ side of me was really secure saying it but being undocumented that was my
fear. I liked this country I’d been here for a couple of months but I didn’t want to go back to
Colombia and face discrimination because of the way I am. Because of the way I look. I’d rather
be in a country that accepts me so when I heard other people sharing I’m undocumented and I’m
unafraid it helped me see a safe space to speak up. That’s when I started sharing my story.” (Youth
organizer 2, Make the Road New York)
“I saw [member] speak. She was talking about her grandparents and how she might never be able
to see them again. That kind of hit hard for me because, like, my grandparents are in Mexico and
that got me really sad to the point where I was crying. […] She gave me a hug and I was like...
Thank you for that. She was like yeah... If you want to know more about us, here’s a little
pamphlet. At that time I was making t-shirts. I was really getting into graphic design so I was like:
if you ever need free graphics contact me.” (Core member 5, YLC)
The RAISE platform, for instance, is currently primarily a Tumblr page where members share
their stories, to make that same connection among Asian-Americans that has existed for the past
few years among the mostly Latino community of Dreamers.
“So the idea is really to humanize a lot of the discussions that surround immigration and
undocumented immigration and also to shed a light on the nuances of Asian American
undocumented membership because many people think undocumented immigration is a Latino
issue.” (Youth organizer, RAISE)
The issue that the use of narratives brings about is, of course, that effective narratives require
‘authenticity’. All stories told in the movement are authentic in the literal sense of being real
stories about real experiences, but organizations such as UWD and MTR and to some degree
TMC and RAISE hire Dreamers to tell their stories to other youth and to politicians. This causes
some friction, in particular within the NYDA coalition.
“They only have like 3 dreamers that you see all the time. And no one else is coming up. And one
of the Dreamers is already like a naturalized citizen so why is she still there? And that’s great for
her but why couldn’t someone else step up? So these things like, we're still seeing the same youth
coming up at events that are supposed to be undocumented youth hang outs. Why, right? The
whole point of empowering is bringing new faces. I haven’t seen any new people come up. And
that makes me uncomfortable.” (Core member 3, YLC)

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It is certainly the case that in all organizations, those individuals who share their story will do it
multiple times. Yet the ones who do it in a professional capacity do so at most if not all speaking
engagements and lobbying efforts. Sharing their stories becomes part of their job description.
“I realized early on that I’d have to share my story a lot because that’s really what drives this
movement, like coming out and being unafraid. And at first I was totally uncomfortable with that.
I didn’t even tell my friends…I just didn’t tell people about it. And then working here they asked
me, like, would you be comfortable telling your story?” (Youth organizer, Minkwon center)
The claim that MTR does not give youth a voice and is too far from the interests of the
population is well-known by the organization. They regret that their own efforts of community
outreach are not recognized, yet they are mostly concerned with how these differences in views
will affect the sustainability of the coalition as it appears to be derailing when it would in fact
take more, and not less, partners to succeed.
“They claim to be the group leading the voice of undocumented youth. […] But we’re working
together and we take a deep breath before coming to meetings but I feel like that’s what we have
to do. If I want to work in New York and not include the YLC I think I could. But that is
neglecting the work that they do and two wrongs don’t make a right. I don’t think that they
necessarily have the political connections to move the bill forward if they wanted to do it on their
own, so I think slowly but surely they have understood that they also need to work in partnership.
And some of the stuff we bring like, we go lobbying every week. The YLC doesn’t have the funds
and resources to go lobbying every week. And I don’t get along with politicians the way a union
gets along with politicians. So then we bring in a union because they have connections and so
on…” (Senior youth organizer, Make the Road New York; Board member, United We Dream)
When inquired about the coalition, the vast majority of interviewees showed discontent with the
amount of egos on each side as well as a sheer difference in vision. The youth organizer at TMC
appeared to be the only institutional actor besides RAISE that had only praises for the YLC
model, highlighting the symbolic value of having a youth-run organization in the New York
DREAM movement.

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“I think they have been in existence for a long time and they’ve really provided a more youth-led
focused group. And that’s really important. Because at Minkwon and Make the Road, there is that
governing body that makes decisions and they are adults right? But the YLC does everything, with
no adults. All youth. And I think that’s really empowering to know like you’re the decision
makers.” (Youth organizer, Minkwon center)
With so many divergences and outright disagreements in view and strategy, an outsider may be
left to wonder what the reason is for insisting on collaboration. Keeping in mind that the
coalition has not yet succeeded in achieving its common policy goals, it is further puzzling that
they continue to attempt working collectively with so many clear tensions.
Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes evident that these organizations need one
another. The senior organizer from MTR hinted at interdependencies between organizations that
want to achieve policy goals – some have good connections, others have funding, etc. – but what
is more important is that together, in greater numbers, they are stronger. Disagreements aside,
all SMOs involved are aware that what drives their movement goes beyond having different
skills or connections; it is about having organizations that bring anything at all – preferably
people – in sufficient numbers.
“The people you believe were going to help you discourage you and a lot of tension comes from
that and eventually you want to isolate yourself from them but then you realize you actually need
them. It’s a necessary evil. For you to actually move forward with that you need all these people,
this network. No matter what you have to move forward together” (Core member 1, YLC)
Noting that organizations in the DREAM movement need to work together in New York City to
attain any change in New York state, while also acknowledging the complexity of this task based
on how divergent their positions are institutionally, and how their world views and strategies
differ for this reason, it becomes very interesting to look at the dilemmas that this movement
faces in attempting to work collectively. The following section, on limitations and framing
dilemmas, will look specifically at these issues.

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