CLSC | Socio-Legal Studies Workshop: Jahaira Pacheco - "Incalculable Time: The Bureaucratic Wait in Immigrants' Efforts to Secure Family Unity"

Abstract

This article examines the experience of immigrants as they attempt to make sense of immigration processes during consultations. More specifically, it asks how immigrants attempt to grasp control of these opaque processes. I draw on qualitative data collected between June and November 2023 from interviews with legal representatives in California and consultation observations at Papeles Para Todos, a community-based nonprofit organization in the Central Valley of California. I argue that immigrants experience consultations as the entry point into incalculable time–an uncertain and unpredictable waiting period with no clear end. While immigrants go into consultations seeking clear answers about their legal options, they encounter explanations of contingencies, forced to grapple with the gap between legal eligibility and case outcomes. Rather than offering a clear path forward, consultations highlight the opaqueness and instability of the immigration system, imposing the burden of legal uncertainty onto immigrants who must choose to apply or forgo lawful status.