This chapter presents an ethnographic case study of Moscow City Court with reference to administrative immigration offences (Arts 18.8 and 18.10 Code of Administrative Offences). It develops an alternative understanding of the everyday processes of immigration cases, migrants’ experiences of the court and the role of judges as immigration law enforcers. This interpretation is based on two different and competing logics that unfold in the courtroom: the case file logic and the humanitarian logic. The former refers to a very heavy, if not exclusive, reliance on written submissions in rendering judgments – what could be termed ‘a trial by paper’. These decisions rest exclusively upon formal protocols from the immigration raids, pictures from the raided work places and (often self-incriminating) affidavits signed by the defendants. The role of the judge in these cases does not seem to be to establish the facts by examining the witnesses or scrutinizing how evidence was gathered in the pre-trial stage. The humanitarian logic, in turn, explains the exceptional deviations from the case file model, when Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights are invoked by judges to reverse the expulsions of certain types of vulnerable migrants.