How do democracies embroiled in civil wars grapple with transitional justice to redress transborder forced displacement? What do the forcibly displaced abroad expect from their states of origin under conditions of protracted and ongoing violence? This dissertation studies Colombia’s Victims Law, the most ambitious redress law globally, to prove the paradoxes and possibilities that arise when violent democracies commit to transborder reparations. Bridging the fields of transitional justice, legal studies, diaspora studies, and migrant integration, the dissertation argues that an “excess of law” emerges in response to violence and in efforts to legitimize peace processes, with diverse implications for forcibly displaced populations abroad. This “excess of law” refers to a proliferation of legal norms manifesting through frequent legal reforms, progressive rulings, or redress laws that are ambitious yet often unattainable. Violent democracies provide institutional opportunities, political openings, and incentives to enact such laws as a means of signaling state legitimacy, upholding moral imperatives, and providing mechanisms for the powerless to respond to violence. However, the instrumental efficacy of these laws is frequently undermined by the violence they seek to address. Colombia’s sweeping promise to redress more than 14% of its population, the majority of whom are forcibly displaced, has overwhelmed the state and engendered significant frustration among victims. This situation presents a paradox: The greater the state’s ambition to deliver equitable redress to a vast number of victims, the more it struggles to fulfill its promises. Moreover, the state’s inability to meet its commitments diminishes its capacity to achieve the political objectives of redress. Nevertheless, the dissertation also illustrates that the “excess of law” generates a surplus of meanings that shape new forms of agency. The symbolic dimensions of the Victims Law have enabled the forcibly displaced abroad to mitigate the burdens of alienation, isolation, and precarious belonging that characterize the liminality of exile. My participatory research through photovoice with a diverse group of Colombian exiles in the Unites States also reveals how these symbolic mediations facilitate trust-building among exiles and confront the challenges of integration in host societies when return is unfeasible or undesirable.