Grad - D'Aoust

Abstract

Though marriage is currently the primary reason why people migrate to the United States, few studies have examined this trend. This has not prevented the US Citizenship and Immigration Services from identifying transnational marriage and its fraud potential as a “threat to national security.” This paper argues that one subgroup of migrants, the so-called “mail-order brides,” contribute to security anxieties about migration. Security anxieties stem mostly from the fear that mail-order brides signal a “privatization of citizenship.” I also suggest that “mail-order brides” are also paradoxically seen as agents of (re)founding of the democratic order.