Pregnant on Arrival: Making the Illegal Immigrant

The case of Ireland reveals how the implications of pregnancy and sexuality figure in the determination of immigrants’ legal status From 1997 to 2004, Ireland’s headlines recast pregnant immigrants as “illegals” entering the country to gain legal residency through childbirth. Eithne Luibhéid offers unvarnished insight into how categories of immigrant legal status emerge and change, how sexual regimes figure in these processes, and how efforts to prevent illegal immigration redefine nationalist sexual norms and associated racial, gender, economic, and geopolitical hierarchies.