HOW DO POLITICAL CONTEXTS SHAPE UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH MOVEMENTS? EVIDENCE FROM THREE IMMIGRANT DESTINATIONS * Edelina M. Burciaga and Lisa M. Martinez † Drawing on research spanning ten years in three immigrant destinations—Los Angeles, Denver, and Atlanta—we address the question, “How do political contexts shape undocumented youth movements?” To do so, we bring into dialogue social movements and immigration scholarship by providing a framework for understanding undocumented youth activism. Building on poli- tical opportunity theory in social movements and segmented assimilation theory in migration studies, we advance the notion of localized political contexts: contexts of varying levels of an- tagonism and accommodation toward immigrants, which shape the emergence and character of undocumented youth movements. We argue that variegated political, legal, and discursive landscapes shape undocumented activism in three ways: (1) the claims that are made; (2) the targets for these claims; and (3) the strategies and tactics the movement adopts. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of undocumented youth movements given the increasingly hostile political context unfolding at the national level. Starting in the late 1990s, the number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States increased from 3.5 million to nearly 11 million in 2014 (Passel and Cohn 2016). Approximately 2 million are members of the undocumented 1.5 generation, meaning they came to the United States as children and have spent most of their formative lives here (Rumbaut 2004). Defying conventional wisdom about immigrants “living in the shadows,” undocumented youth and young adults have built a vibrant social movement. Yet, while research on undocumented youth abounds, their activism has yet to receive full attention in social movements scholarship. To fill this gap, we draw on data collected from 2006 to 2017 in Los Angeles, California (a traditional immigrant destination), Denver, Colorado (a reemergent immigrant destination), and Atlanta, Georgia (a new immigrant destination) to examine the undocumented youth movement. In particular, we focus on how the uneven contours of the political, legal, and discursive landscape shape activism in each of these immigrant destinations. Previous research about the undocumented youth movement has focused primarily on activism in traditional immigrant gateways, such as California and Illinois (Enriquez and Saguy 2016; Nicholls 2013a; Pallares and Flores-Gonzales 2010; Pallares 2014). Traditional immigrant gateways tend to be distinguished by established immigrant populations and their relatively accommodating policies and practices. In contrast, reemergent and new immigrant destinations, which have struggled with the influx of undocumented immigrants, are characterized by ambivalent or hostile policies and practices (Cebulko and Silver 2016; Marrow 2011; Martinez 2014). These variegated landscapes raise an important question: How do political contexts shape undocumented youth movements? In this article, we heed the call to bring into dialogue social movements and immigration scholarship (Menjivar 2010), and add to the growing body of literature in this field by providing * We are grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their feedback. Special thanks to Veronica Terriquez for comments on a previous version of this article. Edelina Burciaga’s research was supported by the UC Center for New Racial Studies, the National Science Foundation [grant number 1434669], UC MEXUS, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Lisa Martinez’s research was supported by a Professional Opportunity Research Fund (PROF) grant and a Faculty Research Fund grant at the University of Denver. † Direct Correspondence to Edelina M. Burciaga, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Denver, CO 80217, edelina.burciaga@ucdenver.edu. Lisa Martinez is at the Department of Sociology and Criminology, Uni- versity of Denver, 2000 E. Ashbury Ave, Denver, CO 80208. © 2017 Mobilization: An International Quarterly 22(4):451-471 DOI 10.17813/1086-671X-20-4-451