The context of Special Education is a privileged space to study participation. Most professionals and teachers have long assumed the participation and collaboration with families as a central tenet of their interventions. On the other hand, parents with children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) have also been described as being permanently under a "constant state of vulnerability", facing an uncertain future for their children and trapped in a highly professionalised context. This paper discusses how the case of children of immigrant families identified as having SEN further amplifies the contradictions that permeate the labelling and referral processes, whereby the way teachers perceive immigrant parents prompt and justify children's needs and interventions.