New book explores document challenges for immigrants
An undocumented individual residing in Southern California, Juan sought a U-visa, which allows crime victims who suffered substantial harm and who collaborated in investigating the incident to legally remain in the United States. To do so, Juan needed the assistance of a legal nonprofit that serves the immigrant community.
That’s where Juan met Susan Bibler Coutin.
Coutin is a UC Irvine professor of criminology, law & society and anthropology. When she could break away from campus one day a week from 2011 to 2014, she carried out observations and volunteer work at the nonprofit, performing a variety of tasks that included helping people like Juan fill out forms and gather records for their immigration cases.
Coutin’s encounter with Juan opens her new book On the Record: Papers, Immigration, and Legal Advocacy (August 2025, University of California Press), which draws on her immersive experiences at the nonprofit as well as her longtime expertise as a scholar and ethnographer who specializes in immigration.
“From my previous research, I was aware of the complex ways that undocumented residents are impacted by papers (or the lack of papers), as well as the challenges that they and their legal representatives face documenting immigration cases,” says Coutin when asked what prompted her to tackle the subject of her book. “For example, I had previously worked with asylum applicants who fled their countries in danger for their lives but did not have documentation of the threats that they faced. In fact, carrying around a death list with one’s name would be very risky. For this project, I was interested in the roles that documentation plays within more routine cases, such as family visa petitions or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) cases.”
She continues: “Immigrant residents who sought to regularize their status faced the challenge that living in the United States without legal status makes it harder to document one’s life. Undocumented residents may not have employment records, bank accounts or rental agreements in their names. As well, undocumented residents are regarded with suspicion by the U.S. government, which can treat even minor discrepancies, such as two different spellings of someone’s name, as an indication of fraud. I was interested in learning how immigrant residents and their allies surmounted these challenges, especially at a moment when deportations were ramping up, and when the federal government under Obama was open to exercising prosecutorial discretion on behalf of those it considered low enforcement priorities.”
Coutin writes about the duality of her role at the nonprofit in her book’s introduction: shadowing service providers then chronicling those experiences for her own research, as well as taking on volunteer tasks and noting what she learned about immigration law and policy.
“I loved doing fieldwork at the nonprofit!” she says with enthusiasm. “While there, I shadowed service providers (if their clients granted permission), participated in trainings and workshops, and performed low-level legal tasks under the supervision of attorneys or Board of Immigration Appeals accredited representatives. I was there when the DACA program was rolled out, and was able to see how application procedures were created. I learned how to fill out forms, take declarations, review documentation, and translate paperwork from Spanish to English for immigration cases. I met highly dedicated legal staff, who worked incredibly hard to advocate for their clients, and I also had an opportunity to talk with those who were seeking legal status. This experience informed the analysis presented in my book. I was able to see a variety of cases, learn how the evidentiary record to support these was assembled, and understand what was at stake for applicants and service providers. I also learned about the connections between providing direct services and broader policy advocacy.”
Documents that people were asked to produce varied depending on the type of relief they sought, with the most common being passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates, tax returns, police reports, check stubs, rental contracts, bank statements, school transcripts, receipts and character references.
“Some of the records that applicants submit are difficult for them to retrieve,” Coutin says. “For example, if there is an error in a document that they need from their country of origin, they must figure out how to correct the error from a distance. Applicants also submit private information, such as declarations describing crimes that they experienced, medical records, and family photos (to show that their relationships are valid). ‘Presence documents’ – evidence that someone was in the United States for a specified period of time – can be difficult to gather, as sometimes there are gaps in people’s records. To fill those gaps, people sometimes must be creative in thinking about the documentation that their daily lives generated.”
Among the hardest-to-produce documents are those from applicants’ countries of origin.
“People can ask relatives to retrieve these for them, but if there are errors in the original document, that process becomes more complicated,” Coutin explains. “Correcting an error, such as a misspelling or an incorrect date, may require legal actions that are difficult to take from outside of the country. A second challenge is locating documents when deadlines are imminent. Sometimes people learn that forms and supporting documentation must be assembled within a short timeframe, which can require missing work or school and spending scarce resources on fees. A third challenge arises when government documents are missing. For example, crime victims who collaborate in a criminal investigation are eligible to apply for a U-visa. To do so, they need a certification from police documenting their collaboration, yet police are not always willing to issue these certifications.”
Challenges in securing such documents may require seeking even more paperwork.
“I observed that if there was a gap in the record of the time that someone was present in the United States, the applicant was advised to solicit affidavits from friends and relatives attesting to their presence,” Coutin says. “Baptismal records were sometimes used to corroborate information about birth and parentage. Records as child support payments, letters, and cards or gifts were used to help document certain kin relationships.”
On the Record arrives as there is an intense spotlight on immigration in America.
“The subject of the book is important because it documents the heightened degree of suspicion to which immigrant residents are subjected as well as the ways that U.S. immigration policies place obstacles in the paths of those who are seeking to regularize their status,” Coutin says. “The book also details the work of attorneys, paralegals and other service providers who seek to surmount these obstacles even though they are in a resource-deficient environment. The book reveals ways that immigrant residents and legal advocates are persistent in the face of adversity. The research also helps to expose the indignities imposed on immigrant residents, and it shares their thoughts for an immigration system that would be more just. Ideas for a path forward are especially important in the current context of heightened immigration enforcement and curtailed legal opportunities.”
On the Record: Papers, Immigration, and Legal Advocacy is available at University of California Press, Amazon,Barnes & Noble and Bookshop. A free digital version is available open-access.
— Matt Coker
Features