Geographies of Discretion and the Jurisdictional Imagination

Abstract

In May 1973, Marie Pierre and a group of five other men and women pooled their money and purchased a small wooden sailboat in the Haitian city of Gonaïves. From there, they traversed hundreds of miles of open ocean and eventually arrived within a few miles of the Florida coast. By that point, the wind and harsh seas of the journey had severely damaged their vessel. If not for a chance encounter with a passing ship, described variously as a "yacht" or "tourist boat" in the transcripts and declarations filed during the litigation that followed, the Haitians and their modest sloop would have been lost to the waters of the Florida Straits. Instead, they were able to board the rescuing vessel and continue on to the nearby port of West Palm Beach, where inspectors of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) later met them at the docks. There they were interviewed, jailed, and their asylum claims referred to Robert Woytych, the INS district director with jurisdiction over the state of Florida.With the blessing of the U.S. Department of State, Woytych wasted little time rejecting their applications. Prior to Woytych's denial, however, Marie Pierre and her fellow voyagers had not had the opportunity to gather and present evidence relevant to their claims, which would have included tales of persecution by the henchmen of Jean-Claude Duvalier, the then-president-for-life of Haiti. Nor had they been given an opportunity to speak with an attorney familiar with U.S. immigration laws before their initial interviews. District Director Woytych had not even met Marie and her companions. His decision was based on "the papers"-that is, notes from the brief primary inspection interview and, presumably, a perfunctory letter from someone in the State Department's Office of Refugee and Migration Affairs. Woytych likely had not even made the decision to deny their claims himself, but rather had almost certainly delegated the responsibility down to his subordinates.Just a few days after coming ashore in West Palm Beach and not long after their asylum applications were rejected, Marie Pierre and her companions found themselves in the unfamiliar setting of a Miami immigration courtroom. One might expect that given the

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