Forgive Me, I am a Good Man, Husband, and Father: Gendered Deservingness in Immigration Court

• In Event: 4355 - Regular Session: Immigration and Gender

Abstract

The state plays an important role in choosing its members and allocating scarce benefits, particularly in the admission and membership of immigrants into the United States. One of the primary ways that the state determines group membership is though judging the deservingness of potential citizens, a process that depends on conceptualizations of deservingness that are embedded in the law, but importantly, derive meaning in the implementation of laws and regulations. Drawing on ethnographic observations of deportation hearings in an immigration court in Philadelphia, this paper examines how respondents and judges conceptualize and construct immigrant deservingness in immigration court cases, with implications for the outcome of deportation cases. While scholars have previously conceptualized immigrant deservingness around economic and cultural factors, there has been insufficient attention paid to the central role of gender in the construction of immigrant deservingness. My findings indicate that gendered performances of masculinity, including providing financial, physical, and emotional support, are leveraged by both noncitizens and state actors (immigration judges) to determine worthiness in removal hearings. Further, there are implications for how the state determines the admission and group membership of immigrant men.

Author

• Dylan Farrell-Bryan, University of Pennsylvania