The (Ir)rational Rituals of Deportation: Ethnographic Observations in an Immigration Court in Texas

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Immigration Enforcement

Abstract

This article explores the contradictions that emerge in immigration courtrooms during deportation hearings that threaten the image that the rule of law is intact, that it is rational, fair, and efficient, that courtrooms are spaces that exhibit these qualities of the rule of law and that, consequently, the decision to deport many of the non-citizens that appear at these hearings are legitimate. Due to changes in deportation law in 1996, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of persons placed in deportation proceedings and deported from the U.S. in the last 16 years. The high volume of deportation hearings that now fill the dockets of immigration judges across the the United States has necessarily led to a highly bureacratized system that can process cases efficiently. My obsevations in courtrooms during deportation hearings at an immigration court in Texas between March and June 2013 suggest that underneath, this system is actually highly irrational and inefficient in ways that promote the deportation of noncitizens. They further suggest that the rituals and symbols of the courtroom and the deportation hearing process partially cover up these irrationalities and inefficiencies but also expose the contradictions that lie at the heart of these hearings.

Author

• Christine Wheatley, University of Texas-Austin