Legal-Spatial Consciousness: A Legal Geography Framework for Examining Migrant Illegality.

In this article, we advance the concept of legal-spatial consciousness-an individual's awareness of how law and space are mutually formed and influential on their lives. Through this concept, we explore how undocumented youth in a variety of American destinations understand and experience migrant illegality. By examining how immigration law and local places are imbricated, we demonstrate how immigrant illegality is defined not only by a patchwork of municipal, state, and federal laws, but also by how undocumented people move through these differently il/legal spaces in their everyday lives. Illegality is thus continually reproduced through individuals' im/mobility through space.