Reconfiguring The Dichotomy Between Instrumentality and Emotionality in Marriage Law Through The Case of Venezuelan Women Migrants in The US

1 - Pamela Martinez
Reconfiguring the dichotomy between instrumentality and emotionality within marriage

law in the case of Venezuelan migrants in the United States
By Pamela Andrea Martinez Barrera
Capstone mentors:
Surabhi Sharma
Elisabeth Anderson
Joint Capstone: Social Research and Public Policy & Film and New Media Capstone
New York University Abu Dhabi
2 - Pamela Martinez
Acknowledgment
First and foremost, I am thankful to the women who trusted me with their stories and to other
migrants who have shared vulnerabilities with me and have sparked forces for me to do this
research. To my multiple families around the world that have embraced me in their homes during
these years and taught me to question the meaning of love, while also showing me acts of love.
Through this learning, I have become curious into inquiring about the possibilities of love
beyond what I had observed and taken as the limitations of acts of care.
Thank you to my Social Research and Public Policy mentor Elisabeth Anderson for her feedback
and pushback. I am thankful to my film and life mentor Surabhi Sharma for motivating me to
think about new possibilities and always thrive for better versions of myself and my work. Thank
you for letting me explore means and methods, and for encouraging me even when it seemed
incomplete. It is an incomplete project.
Thank you to Dale Hudson and Alexis Gambis for being essential intellectual stimuli of my
undergraduate experience through your mentorship in and outside the classroom. The ideas I was
once exposed to through your classes continue to influence the type of work I want to pursue in
the future.
Thank you to my friends from Venezuela who, despite the distance, have unconditionally
supported me with their friendship as I became a migrant without a final destination. To Faisal
Herzallah for teaching me the importance of fighting for what one believes in and that becomes
the motivating force of our work. Thank you for the valuable feedback of my peers, especially
Shahad Hamwi and Farah Elmowafy, for creating a culture of collective care in the classroom.
I am especially grateful to my uncles Gianna Pinto and Nestor Martinez for extending their
social networks and who trusted me so this research would be possible.
This research is dedicated to my family who is today spread all over the world in search of new
life opportunities, but also to the ones that stayed in Venezuela to “construir país” (build the
country). It is specially dedicated to my grandmother, mother, and my sister whose traces of
migration live within me and always remind me of the value of hard work and resilience.
I am thankful to my sister Paola por enseñarme a creer en mis sueños y perseguirlos; por ser mi
apoyo incondicional en la distancia. A mi hermano Paul por ser mi motivación de querer ser
mejor cada día. A mi tío Andrés por haberme expuesto al mundo a través del cine y a mis papás
por brindarme los recursos que alimentaron mi curiosidad y por enseñarme a preocuparme por
problemas que van más allá de los míos.
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Abstract
With the rise of global migration, nation-states continue to curtail the different pathways through
which migrants can obtain citizenship rights. Since marriage migration has been one of the ways
in which migrants defy restrictive migration policies, concerns around international migration
flows have led to greater scrutiny of relationships between citizens and non-citizens under the
law. Meaning, marriage and partner migration processes have become the object of state
scrutiny. By applying D'Aoust’s concept of technologies of love I inquire into how the US state
evaluates the ‘legitimacy’ of marriage through a binary framework of ‘instrumental’ vs
‘emotional’ components within a marriage, as a strategy to control migration. I argue that the
dichotomy between instrumental and emotional needs that the state presupposes to exist to
evaluate the legitimacy of a marriage between a migrant and a US citizen does not suffice to
assess the complexity of marriage. Through this research, I contribute to the idea that since this
dichotomy is not inherently mutually exclusive, instrumental exchanges in marriage are, or can
be, acts of love/care.
Introduction
My motivation to inquire about this topic is the shared solidarity that unites us, people
from the Global South, in achieving one’s desire to enhance one’s mobility. Even more so, it
stems from a long-term engagement with Butler’s words about the agency one has to contribute
to the systems of care that can help defy global power inequalities rooted in colonial violence
(Butler 2016, 67 & Butler 2020, 85).
There is a continuing growing literature about gendered perspectives on Venezuelan
migration within Latin America since that is the region with most Venezuelan refugees, migrants,
and displaced peoples (Wallace 2022). For instance, ethnographic studies such as Torres’
examine how Chile offers an oasis to Venezuelan women in their migrant trajectories (Torres
2021). Since the Venezuelan exodus is a relatively new phenomenon within the history of
migratory pathways into the US, a context-specific study of this phenomenon remains
under-researched, specifically through lenses of gendered migration. Recent migratory waves of
Venezuelans to the United States have occurred as a conglomeration of factors has influenced
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their decision to pursue the ‘American Dream.’ Among these factors is the continuous political
and socio-economic instability of their first countries of destination. As well, social factors such
as xenophobia and criminality in the countries they primarily migrated to have been determinants
in their choice to once again migrate (Wolfe 2020). Ultimately, US foreign policy in recognizing
Venezuelans as one of the few groups eligible to be asylum seekers, Temporary Protected Status,
and family reunification have also influenced migrants’ decisions (USCIS, 2022).
Yet, there are other means through which Venezuelan migrants have opted to obtain
lawful permanence in the US. Contributors reveal how marriage and partner migration have
become battlegrounds for political participation, control, and exclusion (Enriquez 2020, 258).
Simultaneously, female migration has been historically discounted or ignored by policymakers
and the public (Williams 2010, 20). Much of the literature that set out to investigate Venezuelan
migration through gendered lenses within the US context revolves around the moderating effects
of gender on mental health or through statistical analysis of migration flows that remain
insufficient to understand the Venezuelan experience (Salas-Wright et al. 2022 & Wolfe 2020).
The process of Venezuelan women migrating through the means of marriage with qualitative
lenses remains understudied.
With a focus on the mechanisms through which the law operates and its relationship with
women migrants' experiences, this research highlights the importance of centralizing around the
alternative ways in which Venezuelans displaced abroad1 find mechanisms to migrate and obtain
legality while defying restrictive policies while simultaneously resisting moral dichotomies
1
Freier (2022) discusses how the UNHCR category ‘Venezuelans displaced abroad’ first introduced in 2019 by
Global trends Report acknowledges a large percentage of Venezuelans who remain outside of the asylum system.
Through the creation of this category the UNCHR maintains the group to be entitled to international protection
despite not being counted as asylum seekers, refugees of ‘others of concern.’
5 - Pamela Martinez
concerning ‘legitimate’ expressions of love. Thus, this research inquires into the ways in which
the law remains insufficient to evaluate the complexity of social relationships.
Literature on gendering migration
Marriage practices and principles are based on deeply entrenched social, cultural,
political, and economic logics but these evolve in response to changing circumstances (Williams
2010, 19). Lucy Williams provides an agency approach to understanding marriage migration and
problematizes it by discussing the impact gender norms and roles have on individual and
collective decisions to marry and migrate. Laws regulating migration are often highly gendered
and reflect the gender biases and normative assumptions of the countries that operate them
(Williams 2010, 21). The effects of marriage on women's lives is another debate that pertains to
migration literature. Marriage “may change the lives of women more than it changes the lives of
men” since migration may promise new possibilities of self-determination through material gain
and social status but, also, might extend their responsibilities as they participate in new labor
markets (Williams 2010, 27). The importance of analyzing migration through the lenses of
gender lies in acknowledging an independent recognition of migration of women beyond passive
notions of the ‘trailing spouse’ to analyze data of “female-dominated streams of migration that
[otherwise] would go unrecognized in statistics designed with masculine-based conceptions and
categories in mind” (Williams 2010, 20). It is important to move beyond the representation of
women migrants as either powerless victims or heartless opportunists (Williams 2010, 22).
Such normative categorization of migrants extrapolates to contexts of marriage between
migrants and non-migrants. Within this range, women negotiate their agency in different ways.
From ‘mail-order brides,’ to ‘transactional’ marriages or ‘marriages of convenience’ to those

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thought of as ‘marriages out of love,’ there is a range of experiences of women migrants that
pertain careful consideration when evaluating how women exercise their agency as active
migrants and in what ways their gendered experiences condition their migratory journeys
(Williams 2010, 86).
This is not to say that an approach to gendered migration focuses solely on women but it
approaches gender as an essential feature of the migratory experience and provides evidence of
“women [and other genders] as active migrants in their own right” (Williams 2010, 20). In all,
making migration studies gender-sensitive might have the potential to act as a corrective lens to
understanding nuances of migration patterns.
On Law and Marriage
Contemporary literature about love and marriage treats marriage for citizens as a
voluntary commitment that can be easily left because it assumes that marriage is an emotional
commitment in front of the state (Bellah 1996, 90). Yet, for migrants it is different. Migrants
continue to defy restrictive migration policies through the instrument of legal marriage.
‘Marriages of convenience’ or ‘green card marriage’ is one of the ways in which migrants find
pathways to migrate and or remain in their countries of destination and there might be other
reasons beyond love to stay within a marriage (Parker 2022, 459). The law typifies marriages by
legitimizing some for being acts of 'pure love’ while criminalizing others for being considered
‘of convenience,’ especially in cases where non-citizens earn rights by extension of the kin of the
US citizen (Bellah 1996, 88 & Parker 2022, 459).
Migration literature shows how the instrumental is very much present in marriage, where
voluntary kin is a pathway to legality. However, binary analytical frameworks of

7 - Pamela Martinez
instrumental-emotional relationships might obscure the complex ways in which the transactional
and the emotional interact, thus assuming that migrant women who ‘marry out of convenience’
do not engage their emotional needs in the process of marriage. In my research, I address the
intersections between migratory needs and motivations for establishing relationships of legal
kinship. This research suggests that emotional and instrumental needs in a marriage are not linear
or discrete. But rather, specifically in the case of migrant women, several factors influence their
migratory pathways, including their choice to pursue legality through marriage. This research
investigates how marriage interacts with the state of being an immigrant and how, while enabling
the process of obtaining legality, the boundaries between the emotional and the instrumental are
blurry. Within the context of marriage and migrants, I explore the relationship between
instrumental and emotional decision-making of migrant women who engage in relationships of
voluntary kin as a pathway to achieve migrant legality and/or permanent residence. To
understand how relationships of voluntary kin create pathways of migration for women, I
investigate how marriage becomes a space where emotional and instrumental needs intermingle
as a social process. To do so, I discuss D’ Aoust’s framework of technologies of love which
question the ways in which the state mediates the institution of marriage to control migration
while also reproducing a binary understanding of marriage types, especially in the law, as either
instrumental or emotional.
Technologies of love
Nation-states establish domestic policies to control the international migration of
populations such as undocumented workers, asylum seekers, or refugees, displaced peoples,
and/or economic migrants. Marriage migration would appear to be outside of such a category
8 - Pamela Martinez
given its apparent ‘private’ nature. However, the US state addresses issues around family
reunification and marriage migration as a policy concern for migration governance. Just as in
many other parts of the globe, a marriage of ‘convenience’ is a criminalized practice. For
instance, the US Department of Homeland Security officially identified marriage fraud as a
national security concern for being a “major target of terrorists” in a post-9/11 context (Parker
2022 & D’Aoust 2013, 259). Such policies reveal anxieties of the state to control migration by
intersecting with issues of rights, and citizenship but also “less tangible factors such as emotions,
including attachment and love, which become embedded in legal as well as surveillance
practices” (D’Aoust 2013, 258).
Anne-Marie D’Aoust argues that theoretical accounts reject the suggestion that intimacy
and citizenship are inherently connected but rather both rely on policies, practices, and
discourses. But, the emotional technologies that enable such connections between intimacy and
citizenship remain underexplored (D’Aoust 2013, 259). To explore those connections she argues
that “[t]echnologies of love are central to the governmentality of marriage migration; as modes
of subjectification and governing practice they connect intimacy with citizenship” (D’Aoust
2013, 258). She defines technologies of love as the processes that discipline migration flows - for
instance, what kind of marriage migrants the state welcomes or keeps outside of its borders - but
also those policies that define what constitutes a “true” relationship.
D’Aoust refers to emotion as the intensity of a feeling that is owned and recognized.
Emotions such as love can be seen “as a captured intensity or affect which becomes conscious
because of its social expression” (D’Aoust 2013, 260). Thus, for her, technologies of love are the
ways in which emotions, in this case, love, are recognized by the state (D’Aoust 2013, 261). I
utilize D’Aoust’s theoretical framework to think through how these technologies reproduce the
9 - Pamela Martinez
‘instrumental’ and the ‘emotional’ within the law. I explore the malleability between the two in
my ethnographic research and use an open-ended concept of emotions to question the narrow
definitions of love that determine the validity of a marriage. In the next section, I introduce
Laura Enriquez’s research about how myths about legalization and marriage affect romance for
undocumented young adults in the US. Through her research, I provide a legal overview of how
US law operates and impacts people’s lives and, thus, becomes useful to contextualize my
research.
Myths about Legalization and Marriage in the US Context
In contemporary U.S. society, cultural ideals about marriage are heavily influenced by
media images of romantic love and intimacy. By the 17th century, Western marriage began to
transition from a political and economic tool to a search for love and companionship so that
‘love-filled’ marriages became the predominant relationship norm (Enriquez 2020, 31).
Undocumented young adults internalize these dominant romantic notions growing up in the
United States and draw on them to resist the pressures of thinking strategically about marriage
(Enriquez 2020, 31). Enriquez highlights the legal realities while exploring the romantic
narratives of undocumented young adults to explain the two myths about legalization through
marriage to a US citizen that undocumented young adults face:
(1) it is easy to legalize one’s immigration status through marriage. (2)

legalization prospects are the only reason for an undocumented immigrant to
pursue a romantic relationship. The first marriage myth circulates messages that
this legalization pathway is a viable reality and feeds the second myth’s message
that undocumented immigrants make purely rational romantic decisions. Together,
they promote a pervasive message: undocumented young adults should consider
their immigration status and legalization desires when choosing romantic partners.
(Enriquez 2020, 25)
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Enriquez shows evidence of how immigration law still determines how undocumented
young adults approach and experience relationships. She focuses on how the power of the law
extends outside formal legal contexts and “into social interactions in which immigration law is
commonly invoked and navigated.” (Enriquez 2020, 24). Her research is useful because
navigating myths and realities of legalization policies permanently shape adults of all ages'
romantic and personal relationships. For instance, the fact that marriage is a pathway to
legalization, paired with the myth that it is an easy process fuels the second migratory myth:
legalization prospects are the only reason for which immigrants pursue romantic relationships
with US citizens, regardless of whether they are documented or not (Enriquez 2020, 27). In
addition, Enriquez details the mythic messages young adults receive about legalization through
marriage which shows how moral judgments imposed through the law are also reproduced in
social contexts. However, narratives of “taking advantage” or “using someone” moralizing the
importance of romantic love in marriage are not at the center of this inquiry. My research does
not aim to question whether my subjects decided to marry “just for papers,” but it acknowledges
that women think strategically about marriage.
Different from Enriquez, I explore how Venezuelan recent migrants consider marriage as
an instrumental tool. Yet, I argue that even when Venezuelan women migrants circumvent
restrictive migratory and legal policies through marriage, instrumental and emotional
commitments continue to be in tangent with one another. To do so, I draw on Anne-Marie d’
Aoust’s problematization of binaries between the legal vs emotional, love vs interest, state vs
intimacy, and migrant vs citizen to examine the politics of marriage as a phenomenon embedded
and interacting in broader social, cultural, economic and political processes, among those,
international migration (d’Aoust 2022, ix). I argue that the legal institution of marriage, which
the state legitimizes or criminalizes through a binary framework of instrumental and emotional
relationships, needs to instead be conceptualized as a spectrum. Meaning, I explore the ways in
which affective, transactional, collective, and familial factors intersect within a range, rather than
through a discrete dichotomy of needs. I argue that, in the case of Venezuelan women marrying
US citizens with the priority to obtain legality, as opposed to marrying ‘for love,’ affective
processes continue to occur in the case of so-called ‘transactional’ marriages.
Methods
I interviewed 17 Venezuelan women who migrated to the US. Out of the 17, nine
interviewees changed their immigration status and achieved legality through marriage. Four of
the 17 are young adults between the ages of 23 - 27 years old. The remaining participants are in
their late 30’s and 40’s. This is important because their adulthood and the stages in which they
are in life determine their motivations to migrate as they not only care for themselves but also
their family, including their children and their parents or extended relatives who continue to live
in Venezuela. Different from younger adults, mid-age adults might understand their immigration
status barriers as more significant (Enriquez 2020, 34). In that sense, the latter group has also
gone through romantic relationships and legal processes of marriage and/or cohabitation, and
divorce that might influence their perceptions of romance and marriage and, as a result, the
decision-making process.
During my study away in New York in the Spring of 2022 I started searching for asylum
seekers I could interview for a project on oral histories. I first reached out to Venezuelans in New
York City through Facebook groups. I was amused to find that all people who were willing to be
interviewed were men. One day, while I was on my internship at Cinema Tropical,2 I met a
Venezuelan woman who was cleaning the space. When she knew I was from Venezuela she
immediately hugged me and we talked for a while. Some weeks later I interviewed her. After
learning about her experience of migration through marriage, I started to actively search for
women respondents whose pathways of migration were related in some capacity to marriage.
While working in my internship with Labocine3 in NYC during the summer, I visited my uncles
who were lawyers in Venezuela and today have a family-run business of paralegals in Tampa,
Florida. Most of my family members left Venezuela and many of them live in Florida. While
there I gathered the contacts of the clients who agreed to be interviewed after being introduced
through my aunt. I interviewed three respondents in person during that trip. The rest of them I
interviewed between that summer and the end of fall of 2022. One of them I interviewed in the
Bronx, and another one in Miami. The length of these interviews ranges between an hour and a
whole day. On average these interviews were 2-3 hours long. During these interviews, we
discussed several topics: their motivations to migrate, their life in Venezuela, their means of
migration, experiences at the border, experiences of marriage with non-citizens, of being a
migrant while in the US, the process of changing migratory status, etc. I asked open-ended
questions and let the interviews vary based on what they felt like sharing. I allowed myself to
have moments of vulnerability with my interviewees to encourage a safe space between me and
the respondents.
2
Cinema Tropical is a non-profit media arts organization that has become the leading presenter of Latin American
cinema in the United States.
3
Labocine is a hybrid streaming platform that embraces and supports films that engage with the synergy between
science and cinema, while embracing the traits of the Science New Wave.
Limitations
This study explores the technologies of love the state uses to legitimize or discredit
marriages between citizens and non-citizens. Although I aim to share as accurately as possible
the participant’s experiences of marriage from their point of view I recognize that there are some
of the limitations within the research. First, although I attempt to focus on the lived experiences
of the participants from their points of view, I recognize that a multilingual research process
inherently loses components of affective and discursive knowledge. The transcripts were not
only transcribed but also translated with the support of artificial intelligence programs and by
me. In that sense, my interpretation of the accounts is present in the analysis but also in the way
it is translated.4 Furthermore, my interpretation of the accounts of respondents is - to a certain
extent - influenced by several factors: my positionality in the research process as a student
researcher with limited ethnographic experience, my experience about the topic, but also, the
bias derived from my subjecthood as a Venezuelan migrant.
A second limitation of this research paper is that it does not address the experiences of
undocumented migrants ‘without inspection’ but only migrants who have entered and obtained a
form of legal recognition when entering their country of destination, either as asylum seekers,
refugees, tourists that have applied to Temporary Protected Status (TPS)5, and other forms of
legal recognition. The reason for delimiting the population of interest is that the safety of the
participants was at the forefront of the research and interviewing undocumented migrants could
potentially jeopardize their legal status were they ever to be identified.
4
That is why, this sociological inquiry is part of a broader research-based art practice expressed in an installation
with elements in different formats beyond the text. One of them is a multimedia piece called so much loss in
translation. For more details about this piece check the exhibition paper annexed as part of my capstone thesis.
5
TPS is a non-immigration status, a temporary benefit granted to specific communities that does not lead to lawful
permanent resident status or give any other immigration status in the US. For further information visit USCIS..
Third, although none of the participants expressed a fear of moral judgment about the
instrumentality of their relationships, I acknowledge that some participants were careful with
their choice of words when sharing with me the reasons for which they married, which might be
a way to socially or legally protect themselves from a perceived risk of participating in the
research since I was recording the interview. As a result, self-perception bias might be motivated
by the fact that marriage is a legal, but also, socially sanctioned act with its norms (Enriquez
2020, 38). On the other side, there are no cases of participants who rather remain undocumented
instead of claiming their partner’s migratory status in an attempt to convince their romantic
partners that their relationship is real while assuring themselves that they were not compromising
their romantic and moral selves (Enriquez 2020, 29). In all, counternarratives that might exist but
not included in this paper might highlight the legal realities and romantic notions that separate
the possibility of the intermingling of the instrumental and the emotional. Also, this research
does not address unsuccessful cases (all participants are either waiting, have been guaranteed
asylum or voluntarily returned to Venezuela). A more holistic approach that includes the
aforementioned could be useful to understand the relationship between instrumentality and
emotional needs within a marriage.
Another limitation is the sole focus on women. Because I only interviewed women, this
research remains insufficient to compare gendered experiences. Further, research that includes
other genders and centralizes gender as a comparative tool remains necessary to understand how
the realities of different genders interact with migratory experiences and influence migratory
choices.
Pathways to lawful residency in the US
Marriage to a U.S. citizen opens up a potential pathway to lawful permanent residency
for immigrants. “U.S. immigration policy prioritizes family ties, allowing citizens and permanent
residents to petition for immediate and extended family members’ entry into the United States, or
adjust their status if already present” (Enriquez 2020, 23). One of the myths of legalization and
marriage is that U.S citizens’ spousal petitions immediately provide permanent residency to
approved applications while “most other family petitions have extensive backlogs because there
are annual limits on the number of visas issued by country of origin” (Enriquez 2020, 24). Legal
realities guarantee that legalization through marriage is a slow process and not available to all
immigrants, especially if undocumented (Enriquez 2020, 28).
Forty-two percent of undocumented immigrants entered the United States “with
inspection,” meaning they were formally admitted and then overstayed a visa (Warren & Kerwin,
2017). This is the case for the majority of Venezuelans, who historically have been easily
granted tourist visas and recently have become eligible to file for refugee status. Hence,
Venezuelans, regardless of their socio-economic status and the conditions that affect their
migratory status, face a relatively straightforward legalization process compared to those who,
although might be also fleeing or displaced, are considered economic migrants. In the context of
marriage, those who entered “with inspection,” can adjust their immigration status while
remaining in the country with a petition filed by a U.S spouse, and this usually takes less than a
year (29, Enriquez). This is different from those who entered without inspection and do not have
a pending petition since they are required to return to their country of origin to process their
application at a U.S consulate.6 US citizens and green card holders can request a petition for
6
However, if they have been in the United States for over a year, leaving the country to do so triggers a 10-year bar
on their reentry. They can petition to remove the bar by demonstrating that their absence would create extreme
hardship for their citizen spouse.
certain family members to immigrate or, once inside the country, become permanent residents
under the form I-130, the petition for Alien Relative (USCIS 2023).
Technologies of love
Besides filing the petition, the process includes waiting to be called for an in-person
interview at a USCIS7 office conducted by a trained immigration official where the couple needs
to provide evidence that their love is ‘real.’ Often but not always there is a translator and the
immigration official is bilingual. The materialization of love takes different forms, ranging from
careful choices of “convincing photographs,” collection of testimonies by third parties that vouch
for the couples’ real feelings, proof of shared bank accounts, electricity bills, and other
documents with the same address, etc. Although there is a de facto setting of the administrative
technologies of the state to prove whether a marriage is of “love” or not through material
evidence, the extent of questioning remains at the discretion of immigration officials. Yersika, a
single mother with two daughters who migrated to Miami before her with her father, explains
how acts such as opening joint bank accounts, moving to a common apartment, and taking
pictures together during a wedding party to later print them on an album were part of the
necessary evidence to establish her partnership with a permanent resident during the interview.
What do other technologies of love look like? The arbitrariness of the law
In this next section I describe some of the technologies of love I identified as I asked my
research participants about their marriage interviews. An interesting case that points out the
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
conditions upon which an immigration officer tries to assess whether a marriage is legitimate is
Angelica’s case. A component of the states’ technologies of love is to whom they ask about their
marriage. They also ask the spouse citizen. When I asked her how she felt the day of the
interview she replied, “Of course [I was scared] because [my husband] se volvió un ocho
(became an eight).” This phrase suggests that her partner became tangled with his words. When
they asked her partner in the interview why did he marry her: “[my husband] could not find
[words] (...) para que tu veas que (so you see that) God was always present. That [immigration
official] asked [my husband] about five times.” She adds, “[my husband] made three mistakes:
he did not say [correctly] the date of my birth (...) neither [my daughter’s and her last name]. The
[officer] did not like that.” Similarly, Aleida, who married a Chinese-Venezuelan with US
citizenship, recounts, “they asked him how many children I had, their names, their birthdays…
where my children were and where they lived. They also asked him where my children visited in
the United States. Because we had [included] photos of our trip, the five of us in New York and
Bogotá as well.” One of the ways in which the state evaluates the instrumental and the emotional
components of a marriage is the measurement of care that the spouse might have towards the
migrants’ family. In the case of Aleida and Angelica, one of the technologies of love is utilizing
factual information from the women migrant’s children as a proxy to show their emotional
attachment to their spouse.
While on one side the state uses technologies of love to evaluate the veracity of
marriages, migrant partners also have strategies to circumvent these technologies. Angelica, in
her attempt to mediate the situation, considering the stakes and anxieties of being deported, tried
to ‘fix’ her partner’s mistake by showing the officer her and her husband’s relationship
dynamics. “[the officer] asked me, ‘why did you marry him?’ - ‘because when I met him he
immediately won my daughter. It’s not like he says. He did have communication with Camila. Is
it true or false, Victor?’ - ‘That's true. It’s just that I'm nervous.’ (...) then the officer asked my
husband what he doesn't like about me. Victor wouldn’t respond so I intervened and said,
‘something I don’t like about Victor is the flatulency.’ The officer and the translator started
laughing but the [immigration officer] also understood [our relationship].” She very intentionally
shared the emotional components of their relationship that could provide greater weight to the
validity of their marriage than the factual information such as dates of birth the states use as
technologies of love to legitimize a marriage. The migration officer replied to Angelica’s partner
soon after, “Did you hear what she just said? Now, say what she said.’ That’s exactly what the
officer said.” Once again, Angelica burst into laughter after quoting the officer. Angelica’s
experience showcases the arbitrary nature of marriage interviews when evaluating the ‘veracity’
of a marriage. This case exemplifies how the immigration officer utilized other technologies of
love other than the ones usually prompted by the state to verify whether the marriage between
Angelica and her partner was real.
A technology of love: time passing
Although the states’ technologies of law are established to standardize the way in which
the state legitimizes a marriage or not, some factors remain arbitrary to the immigration’s officer
judgment, such as the time taken to approve or deny a spousal petition. Angelica recounts her
anxiety when the officer told her that he had two months to decide her migratory status. In
exasperation, she replied, “two months? I was told it was meant to be fast.” Soon later her
lawyer scolded her for talking too much, “only say what they ask you…” as if her asking about
the time it would take to have a response would imply the dubiousness of her intentions. “After
we left I was very upset [because my husband did not know my date of birth]. Augh, you know
how men are. I told him, ‘I was gonna take you to eat outside tonight.’” Angelica laughed.
Although Angelica was worried about the officer’s final decision, soon after leaving the
interview Angelica got her temporary green card approved.
Among the legal requirements implemented with the intent of decreasing ‘fraudulent’
marriages, the legalization process includes time provisions to dictate how long the couple must
remain married. Depending on when their application is approved the undocumented spouse
might be granted a 10-year permanent residency or a conditional residency if they married less
than two years earlier. Thus, “couples must commit to at least two years together, three if they
want their citizen partner to sponsor an accelerated citizenship application rather than waiting
five years to apply on their own” (Ezer 2006, 361). Similar to Angelica, Aleida got her
temporary green card approved at the interview for one year. Then she obtained a permanent one
and three years later she became eligible to become a citizen; she did not leave the United States
throughout that time.
How do you evaluate intimacy?
Another technology of love used by the state to verify the ‘validity’ of marriage is asking
questions about their partners’ tastes and family. Aleida shared, “they asked me, ‘which side
does he sleep on?’ Whether it was on the left or the right side. They asked me what his favorite
perfume was, but he doesn't wear perfume. They asked me the same question three times about
how I met him. The same question, but different words to see if you make a mistake.” Aleida’s
experience is evidence of how the state has different strategies within their technologies of love
to evaluate a marriage. Part of their technologies of love revolves around what they ask but also
how they ask it. Within these strategies, there are repetitions of questions and other techniques in
an attempt to catch one of the spouses in a ‘lie.’ However, many factors influence one’s ability to
express knowledge about things the spouses are “expected to know” if it were a legitimate
marriage. For instance, Aleida shared that she was interviewed by an [American] who did not
speak Spanish. She shared, “I was super nervous. I even said a date [wrongly]. [The immigration
officer] got me a translator since I didn't speak English [properly] (...) the translator told me I
was saying ‘1910’, but I rectified after.” Her example proves how other factors such as language
barriers disadvantage the migrant spouse who has to prove to the officer the veracity of their
story, but at times, their ‘love story’ is limited by the language barrier that exists between the
officer and the spouse.
Since proof of cohabitation is not enough, part of the administrative technologies the state
exercises to essentialize a dichotomy between an ‘instrumental’ and a ‘love’ marriage is by
asking questions about intimacy to the couples during the interview. Milaudi, a Venezuelan
woman who married an American-Vietnamese citizen recounts, “he asked us, ‘when was the last
time you guys had sex?’ I completely remember how the colors came back to my face. I looked
down in embarrassment and said, ‘this morning.’ That was what saved my interview.” It is
interesting to contrast Milaudi and Yersika’s case to illustrate the arbitrariness of marriage
interviews and hence, of the law. Milaudi, who has been married for the past 5 years, was
scrutinized during the marriage interview more than Yersika who comfortably stated the
instrumental nature of their marriage. Milaudi describes the presumptions made at the migration
interview because of her and her husband’s different ethnicities and the language gap in their
marriage:
Milaudi: They never believed me when we said that we were married. To the point that
when we entered the room, the interviewer said ‘I'm going to have a lot of fun
today.’ Yes. He had fun interviewing us (...) Well, it's been five years together.
In contrast, Yersika, whose marriage lasted six months, had an interview that started with
standard questioning but ended sooner than expected.
Yersika: A woman from the Dominican Republic who interviewed us, in Spanish, first
asked us how we met. I don't know why I told her: “do you know the song by
Carlos Vives?” She stared at me, “what song?” - “the one playing a lot on the
radio: ‘I met him in February, we got married in May and one day in December
here we are!8’ Don't ask me what else, but I fell in love with this man, as the song
says. And I started to sing that song. The woman started putting stamps
everywhere in my papers. “You're ready.” She didn't even ask me what we did,
what he was like, where I come from, who I was. Nothing.
Yersika’s experience contributes to my argument that the law is arbitrary in its
implementation. Contrasting Yersika and Milaudi’s marriage interviews concerning their
romantic outcomes shows how the implementation of the law that aims to verify the ‘veracity’ of
a marriage between a US citizen and migrant remains subjective to the migratory officer
enforcer. To a greater extent, Angelica, Aleida, Yersika, and Milaudi's marriage interviews point
to the ways in which the technologies of love of the state might facilitate or curtail possibilities
for women migrants who chose marriage as a pathway to obtaining legality.
Still, not only the implementation of the law is arbitrary. In the next section, I show
examples of different ways in which instrumentality and emotional needs intermingle in
marriages to question the framework states use through their technologies of love to determine
the validity of a marriage.
8
The song she refers to is called “Ella es Mi Fiesta.” You can listen to it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sup_BgE5L64
Voluntary Kin as a pathway to legality
It’s always there, we just use it when it’s useful
Instrumentality of tracing kinship can surface within marriage at any point in time since
they are conditional upon the socio-political, economic, and affective context in which both
partners are involved. For instance, Maria A. and her family struggled for 8 years to become
eligible for permanent residency in the US. She first migrated because her husband, a former
university professor in Venezuela, was offered a job at a university in Florida after Venezuela’s
socioeconomic situation forced them to stay in the US. When they thought her husband would
lose his temporary teaching position, they considered applying for migratory status in Spain. “We
were doing all the nationality paperwork. One of my husband’s ancestors was (...) Sephardic Jew.
My husband, as a descendant of Sephardic Jew, although his family is Christian, is eligible to
obtain residency in Spain.” In the end, Maria A. and her family stayed in the US. Once Maria A.
obtained her permanent residency, she became eligible for a range of benefits that undocumented
immigrants do not have access to. For instance, as a result of her new migratory status, she
obtained a credit to finance a property, but also, she can develop a new thesis project for her
Ph.D. since she couldn’t finish her first one because her migratory status changed to O3, the visa
for dependents, and she was not allowed to work anymore. In the meantime, her children, who
are now over 21 years old, became ineligible to benefit from the permanent residency she
obtained as a result of her husband’s new permanent residency, which he obtained through the
university in which he teaches. Maria A.'s experience points out the challenges of attempting to
obtain legality while being dependent on a non-citizen migratory status. As shared above,
multiple factors such as economic stability and time constraints, play a role in extending legality
to others through kinship. That is why many immigrants opt to marry a US citizen to circumvent
the legal challenges of undocumented status.
An opportunity, at a high cost
The weight given to instrumentality within a marriage is conditional on the migrants’
perception of opportunity. Ysamary is a Venezuelan woman whose son migrated years earlier
than her to study college. “I entered as a tourist and had the opportunity to be with [my son]. He
would tell me, ‘I don’t want you to go back. Stay with me. [In Venezuela] you are alone and I
worry for you.’” Ysamary migrated with her boyfriend of 13 years despite not being
romantically involved anymore. Her ex-partner applied for a special talent visa. She explained, “I
would have ended [the relationship] a long time ago but I needed to migrate.” Then I saw it as an
opportunity (...) at a high cost. We got married one day, the next day (...) he included me as a
dependent.” She quoted her boyfriend, “‘if you want to get married, you are in my hands.” When
thinking about marriage Ysamary did not frame it in relation to love for her partner but her
immigration status weighed in her consideration. Yet, despite seeing the decision as a necessary
sacrifice, there were still deep emotional costs. Ysamary’s case points out the reasons why
migrant women might marry someone for purely instrumental reasons since true love towards
her ‘romantic’ partner was not a decisive factor when deciding to marry.
Beyond transactional, there are different reasons why migrant women commit to
marriage after arriving in their country of destination. As Enriquez points out, the myth of it
being easy to legalize your status through marriage often rests on references to others who
successfully legalized through marriage (25). MJS, who was planning on marrying a Cuban
man,9 was looking for an instrumental relationship to change her migratory status while also
having expectations of a romantic relationship, based on references to others who successfully
obtained legality through marriage.
MJS: I was looking for a relationship like my sister's. I really can't deny that even though
[my sister’s husband] was [practically] a child, he forged his family, and they
bought a house (...) He turned out to be a good, responsible boy. He had promised
her from day one that he was going to marry her to give her documentation. I
really thought that I could repeat history.
MJS’s expectation was that a romantic relationship could be a solution to both her legal
and emotional needs. Even when cognizant of the need to have legal papers, monogamy
remained a priority in her expectations for the relationship. MJS restated her frustration when her
ex-partner lied to her about the whereabouts of his passport when she was about to start the
process of legalization through marriage. “I found out everything [we needed] for court so that
we could get married.” After researching documentation, her ex-partner mentioned he was
missing his birth certificate and that it needed to be sent from Cuba. “One day, his little cousin
said, ‘he has his birth certificate because when you request parole they ask for those documents.’
I realized that things were not how I thought.” Simultaneously, she overheard her partner talking
to his life-long girlfriend from Cuba, who he was planning to bring to the US. “[y]ou block me
with lies. I rather you tell me that you don’t want to marry me. I am not going to oblige anyone
to do something they don’t want,” she said. In this case, she contended with the emotional
dissatisfaction of feeling distrust for her partner on an emotional level as she expected that he
would honor a monogamous relationship but, also, in terms of their already established
instrumental agreement to marry to obtain legality.
9
Back when she met him Cubans were eligible to become permanent residents after being for at least a year in the
United States. Read about Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy to understand better the unique migratory conditions of
Cubans.
The way in which the instrumental and the emotional interact with other is malleable and
contextual to the dynamics of a specific relationship. For instance, while for MJS it was
important that her ex-partner would honor the instrumental agreement to marry to help her obtain
legality, in another moment of her life MJS also planned on having a baby with an
undocumented migrant. Thus, MJS’ experiences serve as an example to prove how a migrant’s
priorities change and shift throughout time. Thus, motivating instrumental and emotional factors
change priority throughout the migrant women’s life and are conditional upon the previous and
future relationships of the participants, as well as the wishes and desires of their present.
Similar to MJS’s case who met her ex-partner whom she hoped to obtain legality
circumstantially due to her sister’s social networks, Yersika’s motivations to marry out of
convenience were the result of unexpected circumstances. Back when she first migrated her
sister introduced her to a Cuban man “both attractive and who serves the ‘story.’” For Yersika,
the ‘story’ is defined as the official narrative that she would use during the marriage interview.
“It is a miracle from God because if I were to marry him (...) I could say I met him even in
Venezuela because he came from there and not from Cuba.” As Yersika expresses, the conditions
under which her partner entered the United States proved to be beneficial to the building of a
narrative that could benefit her migratory status when performing during the interview. Her
instrumental motivations to marry and find a way to permanently live near her daughters were
not mutually exclusive to her romantic involvement with the man she married. “I liked the guy
by the way, yes. I liked my Cuban. We were attracted to each other. It was amazing that this was
happening to me.” Yersika reasserts her emotional and sexual relationship while pointing out the
convenience of having found a partner that would suffice her emotional and instrumental needs.
Although their marriage did not last more than six months, their relationship and the
support provided for each other were beyond merely being instrumental. While they were living
together, Yersika stressed the emotional expectations of living in the same house as a couple,
regardless of whether they were romantically involved or not.
Yersika: We had many setbacks because Cubans go partying, days go by and they come
home as if nothing happened. (...) In December he left me several times, he didn't
come back for about a week. I’d call at dawn to find out if he was alive or dead,
(...) He wouldn’t answer the phone.
I went on a trip to Venezuela and when I came back he was a different person. My
muchachito [boy] began to block my calls, to tell lies. He’d tell me that he was at
his brother's house, I'd go and he was not there (...) There were always arguments
between us.
One of those times (...) he arrived and I told him, ‘that's as far as I come. I'm not
going to put up with things I don't like, I don't need to put up with anything and
it's better to pick up your things and go.’ He collected his things and left.
Yersika’s expectations of cohabitation point to the intermingling of her instrumental and
emotional needs and motivations for this marriage. While pursuing a relationship primarily for
legalization purposes she explains her emotional dissatisfaction with the sudden change of
relationship dynamics in a cohabitation agreement that was conditioned upon monogamy and,
hence, clashed with his other romantic endeavors. Different from Enriquez’s research where
divorced was stigmatized in the social circles of her participants of Mexican heritage, divorce is
part of the cultural norm in Venezuelan society (Enriquez, 31 & Masciadri). While divorce might
be expensive, emotionally draining, stigmatized, and a legally dense process for some,
specifically in the context of migrants whose choices also affect their migratory status, Yersika
opted to separate although it could have compromised her legal status.
Yet, their romantic separation did not completely stripped the emotional and instrumental
needs they sufficed for each other. Even after they unofficially separated he helped her with
applying for her daughters’ change of migratory status. “I don't mind staying married. I have no
rush. I live by myself and you live by yours, ” Yersika quoted him as saying. Moreso, she
financially supported him so he could obtain his medical degree and bring his lifelong girlfriend
from Cuba. She shared, “as a result of my marriage and the help I provided, he helped his
longtime girlfriend who was studying medicine in Cuba.” Their relationship embodied mutual
care, one providing legal support while the other one financial support for long-term dreams
regardless of their romantic involvement but still enabled through the possibilities that their
marriage offered.
A similar case of the instrumental and the emotional intermingling but with a different
outcome than Yersika’s is Milaudi’s experience. Milaudi married a Vietnamese-US citizen who
met through her cousin. “We’d hang out all the time and from there, things started. Honestly, I
never thought I was going to marry him.” One reason why migrant women might marry
cross-ethnically is the emotional benefits from breaking from culturally associated gender norms.
Milaudi: I wasn't used to someone calling me three or four times a day to ask how
I was doing. “Why do you think I call you so many times a day? because I
miss you. And I want to know how you are, I want to know if you ate, I
want to know what you're doing, I want to know if you're doing badly, if
you're happy… That's why I call you.” He told me that. That's when I
understood that it wasn't that he wanted to control me, but that he simply
wanted to know about me.
Milaudi further reflected, “he has always been very sweet. Look at examples of
Venezuelan men, it is very different. Honestly, I had never experienced someone like this. What I
think right now about the men from my country, including my father, is that none of them are
useful.” Her choice to marry someone from another nationality with a different cultural
background could also be understood as a way of resisting the romantic expectations her cultural
context imposed on her. Thus, migrants marrying partners from different cultures can provide a
window of opportunity for their agency in which gender and migrant empowerment intersect.
Love was not the motivating factor to pursue her marriage and yet Milaudi believed that
companionship and legalization could coincide.
Agency and Dependence: ‘I chose to marry you’
Women migrant’s choices to pursue a legally complicated pathway through marriage are
influenced by their previous experiences as partners, and wives. Milaudi, who had been with the
father of her children for 17 years, had never been married, until she came to the United States.
She shared, “my dad always told me that whoever gets married loses and it's true.” And yet, she
decided to marry.
One of the assumed characteristics of marriages with a ‘transactional’ component to it is
the inherent power differential between the spouse citizen and the non-citizen. While the power
differential between partners might exist, there are ways in which women migrants continue to
exercise their agency. For instance, Milaudi exercises her agency when reasserting her long-term
commitment to her marriage by explicitly stating expectations within the household:
Milaudi: Even when we got to the court, I asked him. ‘Silly, are you sure you want to
marry me? You don't know what you're doing. If you marry me, you're going to
marry my whole family. This is going to be a constant coming and going of
people (...) You love peace. My children are the ones who scream, run and jump
off the walls.
But also, by establishing the boundaries of the relationship she asserts how she is emotionally
dependent but also responsible and engaged in her marriage as an equal partner.
Milaudi: In our first big fight he told me that I was nobody without him. And in my
house. With the little English I spoke, I replied, ‘if I left the father of my children,
what makes you think that I would not do the same with you? I chose to marry
you. Not because I need you but because I love you. I don't need anything from
you.’ - ‘Of course you need me. You need me to be able to have papers.’
Her husband bewildered Milaudi.

‘Then why did you marry me? If you think that I married you for papers, go to
court on Monday and ask for a divorce. I will sign it for you. I don't care that you
think I'm going to stay here, crying for you, that I have to go back to Venezuela.
In Venezuela I have a house, car, job, and money. I'm not wealthy, but I come
from being settled. I came by my choice, for the lives of my children. I am not
going to stand still for men and much less for a migratory status.
Milaudi exercises her agency within the marriage despite power dynamics that result
from her legal dependency on her husband. Milaudi reaffirms her agency as a woman and as a
migrant to choose a specific migratory path without compromising her moral self. She is aware
of other potential avenues through which she could stay in the country legally, through asylum or
TPS. “I told him: I tell you that in this country everyone requests political asylum and with the
problems I had in Venezuela…” By utilizing as a discursive tool the other venues of legality at
her disposal she establishes herself as an equal to her partner.
Milaudi points out how her marriage intermingles the instrumental with the emotional as
she asserts not only her feelings for her partner but also acknowledges the benefits of being
married to him as it affects her migratory status. And yet, although she recognizes the
instrumental components of her marriage she determines the boundaries of how much she is
willing to tolerate from her partner. Moreso, she asserts her agency by mocking her partner with
something she knows he feel identified with. She told him, “‘don't think that you are the last
Coca Cola, because no, you are not.’ His addiction is Coca Cola.”
And still, challenges within a marriage can become a burden, especially for the migrant
partner. Milaudi who self-identifies as a catholic woman, recounts a critical moment when she
wanted to separate from her husband and her cousin told her: “‘you've done so much now, bear
it, remember what mechanisms you [need to adopt] to be able to put up with this.’ I had to
decrease the intensity of my fighting with him.” What she means by ‘this’ is the ability to obtain
her legal status so her children can enjoy the benefits of permanent residency, such as
affordability of university education by being considered a resident. While marriage is closely
understood as a sacred act of love in catholicism, Milaudi’s comment points out at how marriage
for instrumental purposes can be a counternarrative to marriage as a sacred act of love between
partners but for a greater goal, in Milaudi’s case, for her children’s future. Transcending
religiosity, interviewees for this research saw marriage as a commitment that can be temporary,
but in the meantime, greater compromising became a tool to go through the challenges of a
marriage while still waiting for permanent residency.
How, if I was a piece of cloth
Milaudi’s experience also hints at the psychological violence that some migrant women
experience as their - transactional or romantic partners - take advantage of the vulnerability of
their legal dependency. Ysamary also shared how her daily interactions between her and her
husband took an emotional toll on her: “I was very skinny, then I gained a lot of weight with the
antidepressants... I wanted to return to Venezuela but we had already gone through the
[migratory] process.” She quoted her ex-husband’s psychological violence toward her as he
threatened her daily with divorcing her: “‘I'm going to break the process.’ Every day he would
tell me, ‘I'm going to Venezuela... I don't know what you're going to do with your life, but if I
stop the process you're going to be fucked.” Ysamary’s material dependence onto her ex-partner,
in addition to the abuse she endured, conditioned her self-esteem. To the extent that, her son
would tell her: "Mom, believe more in yourself! But she comments: “but how was I going to
believe [in myself] if I was un trapito.” Ysamary uses a piece of cloth as a metaphor to express
the vulnerable and precarious conditions in which she was as the result of the emotional and
instrumental ties she had with her ex-partner.
Besides many of the forms of institutionalized violence migrants have to endure, one of
common experience of migration is gender and sexual violence. Eight out of all my interviewees
lived with some form of physical and/or psychological gender violence. Three out of all of my
research subjects endured sexual violence and five of them experienced psychological violence
during their marriage. One is MJA, who moved to the US after falling in love with a
Venezuelan-American who she met in Venezuela and proposed to move in with him. MJA’s case
is the only case of official transnational migration from the participants I interviewed. Meaning,
she is the only one who entered with the Non Immigrant K1 Visa, meant for fianceés.
MJA: When he signed the documents to bring me, he stated that he’d be my [financial]
support in my first five years in the United States. Well, he did not fulfill many
things. I had to pay my expenses. He bought me a car at a dealer but I had to pay
for my car and the insurance. I had to pay for my phone but he told everyone, ‘I
bought her a car, I paid everything.’ Everyone thought, but not really. (...) I was
very independent from a young age and still am. (...)
I didn't have papers but I got a job because I couldn't be locked up in a house all
day. [...] I first worked as a cook, then as a cashier and then as a store manager
with the same boss at the stadium. [My husband] started to get jealous because the
games were at night. I’d leave at 12 am. (...) At some point he quit his job and I
had all the responsibilities of the house, earning $7 p/ hour.
MJA’s experience is relevant because she solely migrated for the purposes of this marriage. Even
after being married, she continued to work illegally since the processing of her change of status
from fianceé to wife of a US citizen took several months. Not only she carried the financial
burden of the household but also, some months into the relationship she underwent gender
violence.
We traveled to spend Christmas with my family in Venezuela. That winter he

became a bit violent and when we returned here the problems intensified more.
The first time he hit me I let it pass because where was I supposed to go if I didn't
have any money? (...)
fifteen days later he hit me again. I went to sleep in another room. What was his
revenge? He made me pay half of the rent, as if I was a tenant. (...)
Days passed by… one day he sent me a text to tell me he needed me to leave
because, and she quotes, “I need to fuck and you are not fulfilling your
obligations as wife.”
She did not have any emotional, social, financial, or legal systems of support when she
decided to leave her ex-husband due to the domestic violence she experienced: “I didn’t even
have el primo de mi primo (the cousin of my cousin).” In MJA’s case, her limited working
opportunities in addition to the financial and psychological violence exercised by her husband,
while legally depending on him, is one of the many ways in which migrant precarity intersects
with gender precarity. In Butlers’ words, precarity is the “politically induced condition in which
certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become
differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death” (Butler 2016, 83). In this case, her condition
as a woman and as a migrant who depended solely on her spouse and not any other networks of
support made her vulnerable to violence, exercised by her own spouse.
Although she did not have close social and family networks next to her, other women
provided her with circumstantial support to escape from the violence she was living. A Cuban
woman helped her leave from there. “Months later he declared himself bankrupt,” she recounts.
As a result, her credit suffered and her car was towed. She had to pay a higher interest rate for
her next car as a result. Thus, marriage, and legal dependency, not only provided her with
potential instrumental benefits but also high emotional and material costs.
MJA’s example shows the extent to which instrumental and emotional expectations occur
from both sides, not only from the side of the women migrant. The emotional attachment to her
then husband eventually ended because he took advantage of the fact that he was her sponsor to
exploit her instrumentally, by commodifying her. In this case, the term ‘commodification’ refers
to the commercial objectification of people and their attributes (Williams 2010, 87). The
commodification of migrant women’s bodies occurs as there are expectations from their spouses
to fulfill sexual needs, and in many cases, as a form of non-monetary payment for extending the
legality onto their wives in a way that enables gender violence.
Furthermore, because of her choice to divorce before the two years timeline, she did not
obtain permanent residency. Thus, the law failed to recognize and provide legal stability
although her marriage was not ‘ilegitimate’ for being solely instrumental. Still, MJA shared with
pride, “I knew that with effort I could make it. One knows where the limit is. After that I had
three jobs, from Monday to Monday for three years.” Today she has her own apartment, her own
nail salon and is planning to have a baby with her current partner.
Gender violence case (U-VISA)
There are few extenuating circumstances in which the non-US citizen partner can apply
to transition from condition to permanent residence on their own, such as is in the case of
domestic abuse by a US citizen or a person protected by the state. This process requires
documentation and depends on the reviewing agent’s discretion (Ezer 2006, 366). MJS
experienced sexual violence with a partner she planned to marry to be able to stay in the US. He
sexually assaulted her, leaving long-term psychological, physical and legal repercussions for her.
Once again, because of her migratory status she felt unable to utilize the systems in place that
could protect her from her abuser:

MJS: I didn't want to go to the police because I was also very afraid of being
deported. Besides the fact that I didn't have documentation, I can't go to
the hospital because I didn't have insurance either.
MJS’s experience suggests how migrant precarity heightens gendered precarity by
preventing migrant women from having access to healthcare and the judicial system in the
aftermath of violence. MJS’ case is interesting because she is the only participant who decided to
apply for the U-Non-immigrant visa, a process which legally protects her from her abuser but
rendered her unable to sustain herself for about 7 years, until she finally became eligible to
work.10 MJS shared poignantly, “I dedicated my residency papers to my little niece who is the
only one who believed in me and encouraged me to proceed with the visa process back when she
was 7 years old. (...) It was a very difficult immigration process.” MJS experience illustrates the
difficulties in making a decision where a migrant spouse might decide to prioritize the
instrumentality of a marriage in contrast to her emotional needs and at points, her safety, with the
hope that the violence is temporary and conditional until the instrumentality of the marriage
provides them with the necessary leverage to leave their abuser.
Socio-economic reality interacting with the instrumental and the emotional
Legal stability and socio-economic privilege influence how instrumental and emotional
needs interact with each other. The extent to which instrumentality and emotional needs play a
role in marriage are heavily influenced by the partners’ socio-economic difference, conditioned
by their legal status. Similar to MJA’s experience of financial dependency conditioning the
possibility of leaving an abusive relationship, as a migrant, MJS, Ysamary and Angelica were
10
I wrote a policy brief called Interpreters of Care: Systems of Support for Migrants Victims of Violence, which
provides potential a intervention to alleviate language-barrier challenges, one of the many barriers that affect eligible
immigrant victims’ ability to seek help and file for legal support in situations of violence. This policy brief is an
element of my research-based art exhibition: Illegal Alien.
economically dependent on their partners. But in other cases, the situation was reversed. In the
case of Ysamary, not only did her ex-partner sexually harass her but, “he would knock on my
door to scold and lecture me to look for a job” although Ysamary did not have a work permit.
Similarly, Milaudi remembers a time in which she almost separated from her husband because
although she was working to support the household and her husband would be unsupportive:
Milaudi: I told [my cousin], ‘Saray, but my life is hellish. I don't have peace. If I spend it,
it's working. I mean, I don't have life if not for work and then he makes it worse.
This section points at the ways in which complexity between the instrumental and the
emotional is heightened because migrants are so dependent on their spouses. The stakes are often
higher than the typical gender dynamics that result from structural social inequality between
male and female citizens.
Differently, there are other instances in which the complexity between instrumental and
emotional needs is reduced since some women migrants have greater leverage to counter legal
dependency. Until now, all the cases discussed have been women who are either mothers of have
financial dependents. Such is the case of Isamar, a 24-year old Venezuelan woman who migrated
to the US alone. She did not have any responsibilities beyond providing for herself and spoke
English. Hence, she had a greater variety of choices when applying for jobs that also enabled her
to wider dating social networks. She shared, “my [today] husband worked at the same brewery as
me but as a manager but we never paid attention to each other. Three years later I went back to
the brewery, not to work, but with some friends and that's where we started talking again.” The
instrumental benefits of a marriage where not at the forefront of her romantic relationship to
better her quality of life and socioeconomic status.
Isamar: I was lucky enough to start in a decent job, but I know that there are
people who don't and compare [their life] with what the life they had
[before migrating]. (...) I never lived in an ugly place, I'm not going to lie.
I know there are people who have had to live in a room, a little hole. But I
said to myself, if I have to work 20 hours a day to pay for a good
apartment, I’ll do it.
Other interviewees with more social and human capital, including higher education,
direct relatives, better job opportunities, wished to engage in marriage for instrumental legal
reasons to change their migratory status, but they actively avoided extending their economic
liability through this voluntary kinship. This is the experience of Yersika:
Yersika: When we married we signed capitulations. That nothing of mine

belonged to him. He didn't want anything either because everyone has
their own. When we got divorced we did it without even going to court.
We signed the divorce paper and it was done the same day.
The examples provided above serve as counter narratives to disprove stereotypical
assumptions within marriage myths between citizens and immigrants, often used to impose a
moral judgment on these marriages in which the immigrant is ‘ripping off’ their partner. In other
words, the assumptions is that migrant partners’ instrumental motivations are not only to obtain
legality but also financially benefit from the citizen partner, a stereotypical behavior imposed on
immigrants. Paradoxically, the extent to which migrant partners depend financially and legally
on their spouses is conditioned by the migratory status in which they are.
We had talked about marriage but further down the future
One way in which the instrumental and emotional reasons to marry intermingle is when
romantic partners decide to marry sooner to support and guarantee the legal stability of their
partner. Angelica shared how there was a period in her life where she was having trouble
covering the financial costs of feeding her daughters in Venezuela. “It was never in my plans to
leave Venezuela but the country’s situation sometimes forces you (...) god, if you give me the
opportunity to leave the country, this time I will do it.” Angelica traveled to the US during the
pandemic to meet a person, Victor, whom she dated for months online. She was harassed upon
her arrival by a migration officer who granted her shorter permission to stay than what her return
flight ticket stated. Angelica recounts the emotional burden of her experience at the airport by
restating the migration officials' words: “‘You have nineteen days to change your ticket. If you
don't change your ticket, your visa will be annulled.’ When I saw Victor, I started crying.” As a
result of Angelica’s distress, her partner utilized his social networks to access bureaucratic
systems, marry within a week and have the marriage interview.
However, this was not Angelica’s initial intent. The lawyer suggested to her, “you have to
get married before (...) because if you do not get married you will have problems here.” The
violence Angelica experienced when she arrived at the airport prompted her to make an
instrumental decision since she thought she would not be allowed to enter the US again she had
not decided to stay. However, her decision to marry does not mean that her relationship was
instrumental in nature.
Angelica: I was getting married for love. I came to meet him and then go back to
Venezuela. Then I would come back and get married but everything rushed. (...)
My birthday was the day after I arrived in Newark. [My husband] told me, “[the
marriage] will be your birthday gift.” I laughed, “yes, my birthday gift!”
Time was also essential in Daniela’s experience.
Daniela: We were in the idea of living together (...) eventually we will get there [to
marriage]. I was under the impression that I could stay in the US through an
extension of my OPT visa but it wasn’t true. I got some options in terms of visas,
but they were pretty conditional (...) if you go through one route, you might be
forced to go back to your country of origin and stay there, the J-1 visa. If you try
to stay through like an f1 visa, you still have to be enrolled full time plus working
full time, I didn't have enough money to do that. (...)
So my husband came to visit me in Chicago and we just had a really frank

conversation (...) ‘I guess we're getting married.’ During his spring break, I flew
in. We went to a church. People from his soccer team organized a little something
for us. My mom was able to make it. Then I flew back to Chicago and finished
my job commitment. In that meantime, we filed for papers.
Although their romantic relationship was developing at a slower pace, Daniela’s
circumstantial legal status influenced their mutual decision to get married sooner. This is an
example out of which the timeline in which relationships become official under the law is
influenced by migrants' precarity. In this sense, the marriage is both instrumental and not. On one
hand, Daniela’s partner’s “gift” of legal status can be considered an instrumental act, but it could
also be considered an act of care since, in Daniela’s words, “this person put himself in a position
to help me out. Of course, we love each other. Eventually, in a few years, we would have done
this, but you carry a lot of guilt, because he was working full time for the both of us, which is
already stressful enough.” The dynamics of Daniela’s and Angelica’s relationships are evidence
of how their husbands wished to extend their legality to as ‘a gift’ to satisfy their migrant
partners’ emotional needs by reassuring them that they would not be deported. In this sense, both
of their husband's gesture can be considered one of care as the husbands wished to gift their
migrant partners something without expectation of ‘payment.’ In that sense, the gesture was not
transactional although it was instrumental to benefit Daniela’s and Angelica’s legal status.
In addition, Daniela’s statement points out at how her partner also provided other systems
of support that provide evidence of his act of care. There was a period in which Daniela was
in-between legal status so she could not work nor drive. Thus, her partner took over financial
responsibility over the household, but also, weekly responsibilities such as grocery shopping. In
addition, their marriages faced challenges as Daniela was adapting to a new environment:
Dani: I was at home, cleaning and cooking and all that stuff. There's nothing wrong with
it. But it was like, I don't have a life. I didn't really have my own network here.
You have a lot of guilt. He would come home, and I was desperate for human
contact, because I couldn't talk to anyone through the day. And so that first year
was extremely hard. (…)
we were figuring it out on top of all our life as a couple… No one tells you that
the first year is horrible, because you're not used to sharing your priorities with
someone.
(...) It was very difficult, despite the privilege that we had to have a stable home,
he had a stable job that could provide for both of us. And I think a lot of that came
from my own guilt and feeling like I'm not pulling my own weight, like I can't
work. I can’t do anything for you in return, because you're putting all this time
and effort to support us both.
Daniela’s expression of guilt points at the emotional responsibility she felt toward her
husband since she did not feel like an equal contributor to the marriage. Her need to reciprocate
stems from love but also the sense of imbalance between partners involved. His act of care is
socially and legally sanctioned as ‘instrumental’ because it provides greater benefits to the
receiving end than the enabler, meaning, the US citizen. While Daniela mentions a sense of
responsibility for not being able to reciprocate, she also mentions she felt guilt of her emotional
need of craving for human contact, who her husband could only provide for her since he was the
only source of support in the context in which she was. Just as Daniela’s words intermingle her
emotional and instrumental needs, there is no clear distinction between them for both partners.
Another example of how time is a determinant factor of the relationship between
instrumentality and emotionality within a marriage is Isamar’s lived experience. I asked Isamar
whether there were any factors that influenced her choice of her to marry her husband. As we
zoomed, her husband was next to her in the car and she asked him, “did you wanna marry me
because you love me or because you wan[ted] to help me?' They smiled at each other. Isamar
continued:
Isamar: The marriage conversion began after five months of being together. (...) Here
they have the custom of moving in together before getting married. I didn't want
to do that because my dad says, “when you move the man doesn't get married”
and I wanted to get married. I told [my husband], “I don't want to move without
getting married. I'm not pressuring you to get married. When you feel ready, we'll
get married.” (...) He is also old[er than me] so he wanted to start a family. His
grandparents are super old so he wanted to get married while they were still alive.
(...)
Besides, at that moment a new immigration law [stated] that people in the asylum
process would be divided [in priority levels]. I was in the [category of people]
who were not a priority. I was like [legally] wandering. Yes, I had my TPS but I
would not apply for a green card or a residence or citizenship [any time soon]. So,
it all kind of came together. He told me, “I want to marry you, why don't we do it,
once and for all.” She quoted her husband.
Similar to Dani’s case, the choice to marry results from an intermingling of instrumental
and emotional factors, from the side of the migrant spouse but also of the emotional needs the
citizen spouse had. On one hand, her migratory status became indefinitely on hold since she was
in the non-priority group of people. On the other hand, her husband had also the instrumental
need to marry within a specific time period for a motivation unrelated to the couple’s timeline. In
this case, the time constraint the age of the grandparents of Isamar’s husband was a greater
motivating factor to marry while they continued to be alive rather than her migratory status.
Another example on how instrumental and emotional needs intermingle for marriage is
the story of Yxa, a self-identifying lesbian woman who married a woman from Puerto Rico. She
reinforced the idea that their search for legal status should not compromise their romantic and
moral selves.
Yxa: I told [my wife] that I didn't want her to see me with pity. At first she didn't
understand what Venezuela's problems were. I didn't tell her much about it either
(...)
I imagine she realized at some point that we really suffered. But I still told her, “I
don't want you to think that we have to get married to resolve something, because
I have my asylum [process].” They won't take me out of here unless I get out
myself.
Yet, while Yxa reaffirms how love remained a priority in the relationship, she also shared how
she saw this relationship through some sense of pragmatism:
Yxa: I did not imagine that in such a short time I was going to solve two things, which is
really getting a person I want to be with and who had papers and wanted to help
me. “I have no problem, I want that too, so let's do both at the same time.” she
quoted her now wife.
Still, Yxa’s account suggests that it was her romantic relationship and not her migratory status
that made her change her mind about marriage.
Yxa: In the beginning of our relationship I was super sure I didn't want to get married
[ever], but [as time passed] I changed my mind. (...) I was sure I wanted to
formalize [our romantic relationship]. It's no secret that I also thought about fixing
my legal situation.
While Yxa’s initial statement seems in contradiction with the latter ones, Yxa’s words
illustrate the ways in which women migrants who decided to marry might not perceive in a
discrete way their emotional and instrumental needs. Both Yxa and her partner changed her mind
about marriage partially considering Yxa’s legal status, but also out of the sincere desire to be
wives. Yet, their desire was not mutually exclusive to Yxa’s desire to benefit from marrying the
person she loves.
Furthermore, as a queer woman with the professional desire to become an actress and
then a comedian, marrying abroad allowed her to achieve aspirations and to live a lifestyle that
would have been more difficult in her home country. Nevertheless, time remained an influential
factor in her decision making process, considering that she was under Temporary Protected
Status (TPS), which not only is subject to be canceled at any time and provides migrants with a
legal status in time periods of up to 18 months. Thus, becoming a financial burden every time
immigrants renew the process.

Her migratory trajectory enabled her to explore her queer subjectivity and identity by
providing her with the imaginative space to grow professionally. In Yxa’s words,
Yxa: my family was always very catholic. In other words, like, the internet is bad, gays
are bad, everything is bad. When I got here I realized (...) that they weren't going
to fire me from a job because I liked a person of the same sex; that people can get
married. I already knew I liked women, and I had no problem telling anyone
either but still, I was shocked to see [how normal it was].
The evidence above provides a counternarrative to the second marriage myth Enriquez
defines: legalization prospects are the only reason for an undocumented immigrant to pursue a
romantic relationship. In this case, by marrying abroad Yxa was also able to transgress the
gender boundaries within a catholic family. So far the examples above have demonstrated how
the emotional needs in a marriage surpassed what seemed instrumental intentions. In the next
section I explore how instrumental motivations are also related to emotional needs to provide for
other kin members.
Marry out of love, for whom?
Not only obtaining legality while migrating allows for possibilities of personal and
professional growth but also enables extending relationships with other kin members. One of the
reasons for which migrant women who are also mothers establish instrumental relationships
through marriage is the emotional commitment they have toward their children. 10 out of 18
interviewees were mothers and 12 out of 18 had other relatives as financial and emotional
dependents.
For instance, Ysamary’s motivations to stay in the country through marriage with her
ex-partner who she was not emotionally involved with anymore were driven by her emotional
commitment to her son.

Ysamary: I don't want to be that typical mom who lives at a distance from
her children…We are not going to deprive ourselves of growing…sharing
everything together. I was [already] separated from him for five years… and he is
going to get married [eventually], because Ale is going to make his life. Great.
But I want at least to be in the same country.
Ysamary’s response when asked why she decided to married are intrinsically related to her
relationship with her son to the point that she decided to marry someone she did not love nor
wanted to be in a relationship with so she could be physically close to her son. Her decision
might be from a sense of responsibility or mutual emotional dependence between her son and
herself. But also, asylum seekers wait months and sometimes years to establish legal residence,
which can cause emotional distress to mothers who wish to support their children in various
ways. These mothers might end up opting for other ‘faster’ migratory pathways, particularly
marriage, to extend their legality onto their children while they are still young.
Extension of legality through mother-children kinship
One of the ways in which mothers can support and/or provide for their children as they
migrate is by guaranteeing their legal status. In an attempt to convince her, Milaudi’s cousin
explained the benefits of marriage in extending her legality to Milaudi’s children, especially
while they were still underage.
Milaudi’s cousin: Think about the future of your children. Mariana has to study here at
the university. You need to have enough cobres [money] to pay for international
tuition. The range of possibilities that there will be for Mariana as a resident or
citizen... Imagine yourself. I'm already going for 12 years with my political
asylum and they haven't even approved it. Imagine how you will be with your
children without papers.
Milaudi extended to her children the benefits of her permanent residency as a result of
her marriage with a US citizen. However, this was only possible because she petitioned her
children before they turned 21 years old. In the case that they would have been over 21 years old
before her marriage interview, they would have become ineligible to become permanent
residents under the Petition for Alien Relative process. Hence, one of the biggest emotional
challenges of parents who wish to benefit their children through migration is the inability to pass
on their legality to their children. The sense of responsibility women have toward their children
is relevant in understanding the complicated ways in which the instrumental and the emotional
interrelate since it expands the scope of emotionality that the law fails to take into account for.
Moreso, it rejects an analysis that might perpetuate beliefs that migrants want to selfishly take
advantage of the state they migrate to, for their own self-interest.
In some cases kinship and the age of the children might not be enough to extend
migratory legality. Legal frameworks delimit the possibilities of extending legality through
kinship. An example is the case of Yersika who before obtaining permanent residency could only
ask for her daughter’s papers through her husband, a US citizen. When recounting her experience
at the interview for her daughter to get residency, she recalls the officer’s words: “regretting it
very much, I won’t give them residence. Your addresses don't match. It seemed that your
daughters didn’t live with you.” Although their relationship as mother-daughters cannot be
questioned by the state as dubious, Yersika’s children were initially denied residence since they
did not have ‘material’ proof of their emotional commitment as a family unit. Just as there are
undefined and malleable boundaries within marriages, there are within blood-family relations.
And yet, how does shared cohabitation can be used as a proxy to the emotional commitment of a
mother to their children?

Discussion
D’Aoust’s theoretical framework of technologies of love connects intimacy and
citizenship in an unexpected way. Her concept of technologies of love highlights the tactics of
the state in evaluating the ways in which the non-citizens have developed connections with, in
this case, US citizenship and belonging, to their partner but also to the state (D’Aoust 2013, 260).
In this case, the state denied Yersika’s children the possibility of benefitting from her mother’s
legality as it claimed that their mother-daughter relationship was not ‘legitimate’ since they did
not share a common space, a material proof of their emotional relationship. More than “the
manifestation of the rationalization of a specific emotion,” D’Aoust’s technologies of love
explore how a migrant identifies in relation to their partner, through a shared sense of
materiality; not only spatial but financial, sexual, and legal. But as Yersika’s evidence suggests,
these technologies of love are applied not to only romantic partners to validate/invalidate
marriages but also to different sorts of relationships through a political economy based on
materiality. But how do materiality and emotionality correlate with each other? D’Aoust argues
that these technologies of love established by the state individually shapes people’s conduct to
manifest love through material means in a way that produces a form of capitalist love (2013,
260).
Investigating these technologies of love allows one to interrogate the “power relations
that make some intensities owned and recognized (or not) as being “love”, without embracing a
normative ontological understanding of it or denying its material effects” (D’Aoust 2013, 261)
since that inquiry remains outside of the scope of this paper. Even though love is not investigated
in this sociological inquiry, the findings of this research allow us to welcome the possibility of a
differential deployment of technologies of love, that is, the tools that states utilize to evaluate the
‘veracity’ of marriages and other institutionalization processes of relationships.
The findings of this paper do not deny that marriage has an instrumental component to it.
Rather it suggests that the dichotomy between emotional and instrumental needs that the law
suggests when evaluating marriages between citizen and migrant spouses does not suffice the
complex ways in which instrumental and emotional needs coexist. Acknowledging the
limitations of the dichotomy the law imposes on these marriages challenges “the rationalization
process that the governmentality of migration entails” (D’Aoust 2013, 260). Instead of
conceiving a dichotomy between instrumental and emotional needs, evaluating metrics of
relationships need to instead be conceptualized as a spectrum that includes the ways in which
affective, transactional, collective, and familial factors intersect within a range, rather than on
binary terms. If one were to question the ways in which the state approves or disapproves of the
legitimacy of a marriage, one can then question the normative structures that constrain ideas of
love outside of political grounds of care. As D’Aoust suggests, love could be understood as the
new ground for political emancipation in which one can “enlarge notions of love that not only go
beyond the limitations of specific conceptions of romance but also “remain closer to an implicit
expression or essence in relation to the political” (D’Aoust 2013, 260). What relationships with
the self and others could new technologies of love create?
Conclusion
This study explores one of the pathways to legality among recent Venezuelan migrants to
the US. This research proves through the case of Venezuelan women marrying US citizens that
even when migrant women marry with the priority to obtain legality - as opposed to marrying
‘for love’- affective processes do occur in the case of so-called ‘transactional’ marriages. In
order to understand how relationships of voluntary kin create pathways of migration for women,
I investigate how marriage becomes a space where emotional and instrumental needs intermingle
as a social process.
This research shows how the process of migrating is not linear but rather more often than
not, migration is unplanned and contingent upon circumstantial factors in the country of origin,
but also in the country of destination. Among those factors is US public policy on migrants and
immigration laws. In that sense, studying the migration patterns of women highlights the
importance of gendered social, political, and cultural factors in determining how and why people
migrate. This is why this research contributes a new perspective to migration literature and,
importantly, to public policy.
This research shows how the law fails to accurately evaluate migrants’ experiences while
simultaneously criminalizing their actions. The law tries to create clear boundaries and
distinctions between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ marriages to control migration waves. Yet,
social relationships are complicated, including those of kinship. As explained above, the reality
is more complicated than the law can appreciate. The hard categorization based on material
evidence remains insufficient to evaluate social processes in which the emotional and the
instrumental interact with each other. The assumptions of the law underlying the extension of
legality through marriage don't appreciate the complexity of these relationships, such as
understanding that instrumental exchanges in marriage are, or can be, acts of love/care. Thus, I
argue that instead of conceiving a dichotomy between instrumental and emotional needs, metrics
to evaluate relationships need to instead be conceptualized as a spectrum that includes the ways
in which affective, transactional, collective, and familial factors intersect within a range, rather
than on binary terms.

The findings of this research motivate me to further inquire into the ways in which one
could extend definitions of love within the law. Ultimately, this research hopes to serve as
evidence of the systems of care and grievances of those who decide to migrate temporarily or
permanently and how they exist in places of ‘in-between’ while circumventing legal, economic,
and migratory borders. All of this is with the hope to provide an affective analysis that informs
adequate public policy from either of the countries where migration processes happen. The goal
is to ultimately include the subjectivities of the migrants to whom the policies serve or un-serve
and to push for more humanistic policies concerning human rights and gender justice.
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Reconfiguring The Dichotomy Between Instrumentality and Emotionality in Marriage Law Through The Case of Venezuelan Women Migrants in The US

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1 - Pamela Martinez

Reconfiguring the dichotomy between instrumentality and emotionality within marriage

By Pamela Andrea Martinez Barrera

(Butler 2016, 67 & Butler 2020, 85).

There is a continuing growing literature about gendered perspectives on Venezuelan

under-researched, specifically through lenses of gendered migration. Recent migratory waves of

Simultaneously, female migration has been historically discounted or ignored by policymakers

lenses remains understudied.

the law remains insufficient to evaluate the complexity of social relationships.

Literature on gendering migration

gender lies in acknowledging an independent recognition of migration of women beyond passive

[otherwise] would go unrecognized in statistics designed with masculine-based conceptions and

Such normative categorization of migrants extrapolates to contexts of marriage between

From ‘mail-order brides,’ to ‘transactional’ marriages or ‘marriages of convenience’ to those

(Williams 2010, 86).

understanding nuances of migration patterns.

On Law and Marriage

US citizen (Bellah 1996, 88 & Parker 2022, 459).

voluntary kin is a pathway to legality. However, binary analytical frameworks of

instrumental and emotional decision-making of migrant women who engage in relationships of

voluntary kin as a pathway to achieve migrant legality and/or permanent residence. To

as a social process. To do so, I discuss D’ Aoust’s framework of technologies of love which

Nation-states establish domestic policies to control the international migration of

populations such as undocumented workers, asylum seekers, or refugees, displaced peoples,

instance, the US Department of Homeland Security officially identified marriage fraud as a

practices” (D’Aoust 2013, 258).

also those policies that define what constitutes a “true” relationship.

Myths about Legalization and Marriage in the US Context

marriage to a US citizen that undocumented young adults face:

(1) it is easy to legalize one’s immigration status through marriage. (2)

that women think strategically about marriage.

commitments continue to be in tangent with one another. To do so, I draw on Anne-Marie d’

relationships, needs to instead be conceptualized as a spectrum. Meaning, I explore the ways in

processes continue to occur in the case of so-called ‘transactional’ marriages.

migration, experiences at the border, experiences of marriage with non-citizens, of being a

it is translated.4 Furthermore, my interpretation of the accounts of respondents is - to a certain

extent - influenced by several factors: my positionality in the research process as a student

bias derived from my subjecthood as a Venezuelan migrant.

potentially jeopardize their legal status were they ever to be identified.

aforementioned could be useful to understand the relationship between instrumentality and

emotional needs within a marriage.

Pathways to lawful residency in the US

Marriage to a U.S. citizen opens up a potential pathway to lawful permanent residency

immigrants, especially if undocumented (Enriquez 2020, 28).

Forty-two percent of undocumented immigrants entered the United States “with

attachment to their spouse.

Angelica and her partner was real.

A technology of love: time passing

interview Angelica got her temporary green card approved.

throughout that time.

How do you evaluate intimacy?

officer and the spouse.

exercises to essentialize a dichotomy between an ‘instrumental’ and a ‘love’ marriage is by

standard questioning but ended sooner than expected.

Yersika’s experience contributes to my argument that the law is arbitrary in its

implementation. Contrasting Yersika and Milaudi’s marriage interviews concerning their

for women migrants who chose marriage as a pathway to obtaining legality.

examples of different ways in which instrumentality and emotional needs intermingle in

the validity of a marriage.

Voluntary Kin as a pathway to legality

It’s always there, we just use it when it’s useful

My husband, as a descendant of Sephardic Jew, although his family is Christian, is eligible to