Levesque, C., DeWaard, J., Chan, L., McKenzie, M. G., Tsuchiya, K., Toles, O., … Boyle, E. H. (2023). Crimmigrating Narratives: Examining Third-Party Observations of US Detained Immigration Court. Law & Social Inquiry, 48(2), 407–436. doi:10.1017/lsi.2022.16
Crimmigrating Narratives: Examining Third-Party Observations of US Detained Immigration Court examines how U.S. immigration courts criminalize non-citizens through what the authors call “crimmigrating narratives,” even though immigration proceedings are formally civil rather than criminal. Drawing on third-party observations of detained immigration court hearings in Fort Snelling, Minnesota (2018–2019), the authors identify three dominant narratives that structure courtroom interactions: threat (framing non-citizens as dangerous based on criminal history), deservingness (assessing moral worth through family ties, rehabilitation, and belonging), and impossibility (casting non-citizens as legally and socially excludable “illegal” subjects). The study shows that these narratives are prioritized by judges and prosecutors in ways that disconnect detainees from their lived experiences, marginalize their own voices—especially when they lack legal representation—and constrain meaningful participation in the legal process. By foregrounding how narrative operates as a mechanism of power and social control, the article demonstrates that immigration court reproduces punishment and exclusion through storytelling practices that legitimize detention and deportation while masking the structural injustices embedded in immigration law itself