This article examines the use of anthropological research by expert witnesses in legal cases involving Mexican immigrants and the intellectual strategies employed to defend them as well as the obstacles such efforts confront. Expert witness research and writing in more than one hundred immigration and criminal cases is the basis for a discussion of the political and legal constraints that often lead to a particular characterization of Mexico, one which lies in contradiction to conventional anthropological approaches to the "cultures" anthropologists study. We consider these matters in terms of several issues about which the expert witness develops arguments and sometimes wins asylum and criminal cases: Mexican cultural "practices," drug trafficking activities, and the Mexican political system. We conclude that given the great dangers faced by immigrant defendants, academic experts should make "good enough" arguments in order to pragmatically defend such clients in immigration and criminal courts, even if those arguments may differ from how anthropologists typically portray immigrants and Mexico in academic publications. Copyright © 2017 by the Society for Applied Anthropology.

culture Expert witness Legal cases Defense Immigration

anthropology Mexico [North America] crime immigrant legislation asylum seeker immigration ethics Culture United States