An in-depth look at the nation’s immigration courts reveals a system plagued by crushing caseloads, staffing challenges and shifting policies.
In its disorder, this is, in fact, a typical day in the chaotic, crowded and confusing U.S. immigration court system of which Rothschild’s courtroom is just one small outpost.
The Associated Press visited immigration courts in 11 different cities more than two dozen times during a 10-day period in late fall. In courts from Boston to San Diego, reporters observed scores of hearings that illustrated how crushing caseloads and shifting policies have landed the courts in unprecedented turmoil:
In Georgia, the interpreter assigned to Rothschild’s courtroom ends up making it to work, but the hearing sputters moments later when a lawyer for a Mexican man isn’t available when Rothschild calls her to appear by phone. Rothschild is placed on hold, and a bouncy beat overlaid with synthesizers fills the room.
“I hate for a guy to leave a hearing having no idea what happened,” he says, and asks the lawyer to relay the results of the proceedings to her client in Spanish. With so many cases, immigrants are often double- and triple-booked for hearings. That can turn immigration court into a high-stakes game of musical chairs, where being the odd man out has far-reaching consequences.Rubelio Sagastume-Cardona has waited two years for a New York judge to consider whether he should get a green card.
And it isn’t confined to New York. In myriad courtrooms, similar scenes play out as immigrants and their lawyers jockey for space on too-cramped calendars. Lopez tells the judge about his devout Christianity and Bible studies, his kids’ education at a charter school and dreams of going to college, his fear of having to move his children to a dangerous place they’ve never been.
“It’s a good first step,” Lopez says a week later. He praises God, “but we hope He can show us another miracle.”A toddler’s gleeful screams fill the immigration courtroom in a Salt Lake City suburb as he plays with toy cars while his mother waits for her turn to go before the judge. There are also American-born kids tagging along with immigrant parents the government seeks to deport.
Dysfunctional for years, the nation's immigration court system has recently grown worse. The AP visited immigration courts in 11 cities observing how massive caseloads and shifting administration policies have increased the turmoil. The hearing ends, and Tabaddor takes a five-minute break. Mejia sits and waits in the courtroom, tears streaming down her face.
While they wear black robes and preside over hearings, immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice and don’t have the same power or autonomy as criminal court judges. In the immigration courts, the friction has taken its toll. Judges are overbooking calendars to try to meet quotas, while the Trump administration has limited their ability to manage dockets as they see fit, adding to the mounting backlog.
They’re moving to an electronic system to try to put an end to the heaps of paper files hoisted in and out of courtrooms. They’re in court four days a week with caseloads that have doubled from a decade ago, leaving minimal time to prep for hearings. The system requires careful choreography among judges, lawyers and language interpreters. Immigration attorneys travel long distances to reach remote courts and follow clients shuffled to different detention facilities, while interpreters crisscross the country to provide translation to immigrants when and where they need it.
Navas Gomez tells the judge how his captors scalded him with boiling water, leaving a scar, and released him days later in a remote sugarcane field. The judge agrees to consider his case, and nearly a month later, he is granted asylum and leaves the detention center a free man.Not all are so fortunate. At the Stewart facility in Georgia, a Honduran man who wants to apply for asylum isn’t sure he’ll be able to get the documents he will need to make his case.
Their fate often depends on the luck of the draw in a system with extreme disparities from judge to judge. There are judges who reject 99 percent of asylum cases before them; others approve more than 90 percent, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
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