Illegalized in the Country of “Universal Citizenship”

By drawing on ethnographic data from a qualitative investigation conducted in Ecuador between 2015 and 2018, I analyze how, in the framework of greater constitutional progressivism on migration, other legal and social practices paradoxically coexisted, producing migrant illegality, deportability and disposability. I argue that these practices—which in some cases are reminiscent of historical racist legacies present since nineteenth-century immigration laws were enacted—have been implemented de jure or de facto, or both, targeting the most impoverished migrants and asylum seekers from certain Caribbean, African, and Asian countries, stripping them of their most basic rights and confining them daily to hyperprecarity. I first develop the theoretical perspective that guides my analysis to then explain why Caribbean, African, and Asian immigrants have chosen the Andean country as their destination, the main setbacks and inconsistencies in Ecuador’s migration policy, and how these setbacks and inconsistencies have affected the daily lives of migrants in a way that triggers their subsequent departure. The chapter concludes by reflecting on how the paradoxical coexistence between a highly progressive constitutional framework and practices of racialized migrant illegalization outlines Ecuador’s complex role in the geopolitics of contemporary migration across the Americas.