Rethinking Agency: Strategizing with, through and around asylum law

If there is one thing I learned over the course of my CLACS research field trip to Ambos Nogales during the summer of 2024, it is to listen, adapt, remain flexible, and be open to the surprising and unexpected. In early July, I traveled to Nogales, Mexico, to gather knowledge about the asylum system, and understand the asylum seekers’ goals, strategies, and perceptions of the asylum process as they embarked on it. However, I got to the border at a very interesting yet unforeseen moment. President Biden had recently passed the now famous Executive Order, and the situation at the border was not like I had been told in my previous interviews. So, I decided to embrace that unexpectedness and try to understand the uniqueness of the situation I was suddenly in. What I did not know is that, by doing that, I would get closer to the heart of the system I was interested in exploring.