Visa Officers as Gatekeepers of a State's Borders: The Social Determinants of Discretion in Spousal Sponsorship Cases in Canada

Visa officers are one of the gatekeepers of a state's borders. Research on discretion exercised by immigration officials tends to focus on interdiction or the regulation of ports of entry. Though all border control agents are delegated with discretion, decisions about visa issuance are arguably more tightly bound by the rule of law. Based on in-depth interviews with overseas visa officers who work for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, this paper examines the social constitution of discretion in Family Class spousal and sponsorship cases. Debates in Canada suggest that the personal attitudes of visa officers are significant factors in shaping their exercise of discretion. Moreover, discretion is seen as a reflection of racism of individual visa officers. This paper challenges this view by suggesting that broader meso- and macro-level forces play a prominent role in discretionary decision-making. It examines how the demands of efficient client processing, client behaviour, migration contexts and legal constraints in Canada and overseas shape the process of decision-making. Discretionary decisions to dig deeper into some applications and not others do put applicants from some countries or regions at a disadvantage, but it is a technical administrative logic, and not ‘race’ that is the source of discrimination.