This article describes a research study that aims to better understand the life-worlds of undocumented migrant youth in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. The program design combines critical place inquiry with Youth Participatory Action Research (yPAR) and photovoice to understand how experiences of setting and place shape how youth who are facing the dilemma of precarious legal status while living in rural areas envision and plan for their futures. With guidance from Indigenous theorizations of refusal, the project explores the potential of embedding refusal into image-based methodologies to involve participants more deliberately in the collection, generation and sharing of data.