Courtroom Guanxi: reciprocity, etiquette, and building relationships in Immigration Court

Keywords: Immigration, Legal Geography, Feminist Geolegalities,
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

While most Immigration Court hearings are open to the public, the “public” rarely interacts with or knows these courts exist. Observing these hearings facilitates a better understanding of the system’s complexities that change with every administration. However, navigating the court requires interactions with teams of security officers, legal assistants, translators, attorneys, and judges. Guanxi is the Mandarin word meaning relation, but its deeper meaning is the networks and relationships that facilitate business dealings. Guanxi is reciprocal relationships where both parties expect to benefit. The interactions within the Immigration Court can be viewed as guanxi with expectations of courtesy and honesty between each proceeding. This paper examines these courtroom relationships and interactions through the lens of feminist geolegalities. In these administrative courts, the personal experiences of the migrants are processed through federal law to determine if they meet the legal criteria to remain in the US. Their fates are decided through a series of hearings, from a short master calendar to four-hour individual hearings, which can last for years before a final decision is handed down. This paper explores these relationships from 15 observations of master calendar and individual hearings in three immigration courts: San Antonio, Dallas, and New Orleans. By examining the courtroom interactions, this paper seeks to understand the relationships between the migrants, attorneys, judges, and various figures within the courtroom and the expectations of reciprocity and etiquette in the proceedings.