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Statements by Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin and other federal officials have become an issue in a Southern California manslaughter case.Erroneous and politically charged statements by Trump administration officials, as well as the district attorney for San Bernardino County, have complicated the prosecution of a truck driverStatements by federal officials have ended up in court documents where attorneys representing the defendant argue the driver's prosecution has been tainted by anti-immigrant bias.
. The driver was seeking asylum and authorized to work in the U.S. by the federal government. Toxicology tests taken after the crash came back negative for all substances., a racial justice advocate, civil rights lawyer and adjunct professor at Georgetown University said these statements have compromised Singh’s ability to receive a fair trial.Erroneous and politically charged statements by Trump administration officials, as well as the district attorney for San Bernardino County, have complicated the prosecution of a truck driverThe statements highlighted the national origin of the driver, 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh, who was born in India, contained false information on his immigration status and made unfounded allegations that he was driving under the influence. It’s the latest in a series of instances where federal officials have injected politics into developing events. In some cases, statements by federal officials later turn out to be false and detrimental to prosecutions, as the“criminal illegal alien” who was driving under the influence . Singh was seeking asylum and authorized to work in the U.S. by the federal government. Toxicology tests taken after the crash came back negative for all substances. “It is a terrible tragedy three innocent people lost their lives due to the reckless open border policies that allowed an illegal alien to be released into the U.S. and drive an 18-wheeler on America’s highways,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in, a racial justice advocate, civil rights lawyer and adjunct professor at Georgetown University said these statements have compromised Singh’s ability to receive a fair trial. “When you think of the variety of federal statements in this case, you see blatant racial and xenophobic rhetoric that is highly prejudicial,” Sethi said. “How can any juror set aside that rhetoric … and be able to ascertain the truth?” Public defenders representing Singh argue similar statements by San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson, a deputy in Anderson’s office and the California Highway Patrol violate California's Racial Justice Act, a 2020 law prohibiting prosecutions influenced by racial bias. Hearings on the Racial Justice Act claims will continue March 10. Singh's trial will commence after a judge rules on those claims. Preet has pleaded not guilty to the felony charges against him. “I think authorities made statements infused by racial bias in this case,” Sethi, who has served as an expert in Racial Justice Act litigation, told LAist. “Bottom line, California authorities in this case mirror the racist political rhetoric we are hearing from the federal government.”Six months before the crash that led to the charges against Singh, President Donald Trump took steps to restrict states from issuing commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants.could revoke the licenses of up to 61,000 immigrant truck drivers, amounting to 8% of the total commercial licenses in the state. The department gave California 30 days to come into compliance with these new rules or risk losing millions of dollars in federal highway funds.He was initially charged with driving under the influence, but the district attorney dropped those charges after toxicology reports came back negative for all substances. As a deputy district attorney said in a filing, the crash immediately “generated high media interest and touched off a federal and state official-driven debate surrounding immigration policy and the state's issuance of commercial driver's licenses.”arguing Singh, an asylum seeker, entered the country illegally in 2022 “and was RELEASED into the country under the Biden administration.”lodged an arrest detainer for Jashanpreet Singh, a criminal illegal alien from India, who took the lives of 3 individuals in a horrific DUI accident in San Bernadino County, California.The U.S. Department of Transportation also issued a news release on Singh’s crash and California’s compliance with the new licensing rules. The release stated that Singh was operating his truck under the influence of drugs, despite a lack of evidence to support that claim. In an email to LAist, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said California issued Singh’s Commercial Drivers License without properly vetting his qualifications. Newsom’s press office directed LAist to the California Transportation Agency, which has yet to respond to emailed questions. But in an earlier statement on social media, Newsom’s office stated that the federal government approved and renewed Singh’s federal employment authorization multiple times, and it was that approval that allowed him to obtain a commercial driver’s license in California. This is tragic, and as with every tragedy over the last ten months, Secretary Noem has ordered Secretary Duffy to look for every opportunity to manipulate the facts to score cheap political points.Tucker has not responded to an emailed request for comment. The filing highlights a motion to increase bail written by a California Highway Patrol officer shortly after the crash that claimed Singh was subject to deportation, despite being an asylum seeker who was authorized to work in the U.S. by the federal government, and a comment by a deputy district attorney about Singh’s use of an interpreter in court. The primary violation, according to Tucker’s filing, occurred Oct. 23, when Anderson, the district attorney, issued a news release that tied the crash to state and federal policy. “Had the rule of law been followed by state and federal officials the defendant should have never been in California at all,” Anderson’s statement said, before adding that Anderson’s office would “aggressively prosecute” the case. According to the defense, this statement “injected Mr. Singh’s national origin, by way of his immigration status, into the criminal justice proceedings, despite evidence to the contrary.”that the statements made by the office focus on policy without referencing or disparaging Singh’s identity, do not contain discriminatory language and do not meet the standards of a Racial Justice Act violation. Further, the district attorney is protected by the First Amendment, giving him latitude to speak on policy matters, according to the filing. Stemler’s response stated that the Oct. 21 crash that killed three people and injured several others in Ontario “touched off a debate” about immigration and truck driving but that it was not Anderson’s office who politicized the case. “It was federal officials who injected defendant’s immigration status into the media narrative on the defendant’s case,” reads the filing by Stemler, the Racial Justice Act coordinator for the office.by Duffy stating that his department was withholding $40 million from California because the state did not comply with the new federal rules. “The following day, federal officials ramped up further,” the filing reads, pointing to the Oct. 23 DHS press release on the crash that referred to Singh as a “criminal illegal alien from India.”Sethi, the civil rights lawyer, said the statements by federal officials nevertheless compromise Singh’s ability to receive a fair trial. “Long before Mr. Singh ever sets foot in a courtroom, there is a long shadow of political theater and xenophobic rhetoric that will be cast over him,” Sethi said, “and his case that is the fault of state and federal officials.”Los Angeles remains on shaky financial ground with increased liability costs, overspending by city departments and revenue shortfalls forcing it to dip into its reserves, according to a financial report released Wednesday.The annual report for the fiscal year that ended in June, from L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, said the culmination of decades of “unstable budgeting,” is seen and felt by Angelenos across the city “in crumbling infrastructure and deteriorating services,”Additionally, short-term budget balancing over the past two years resulted in unpaid furlough days for city employees and the elimination of thousands of unfilled positions.The top area of overspending continued to be liability payments. Liability claims exceeded the budget by $199 million or 228%, totaling a record of $287 million for the year. The top three areas include police at $152 million, street services at $44 million and transportation at $20 million. Los Angeles remains on shaky financial ground with increased liability costs, overspending by city departments and revenue shortfalls forcing it to dip into its reserves, according to a financial report released Wednesday. The annual report for the fiscal year that ended in June, from Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia, said the culmination of decades of “unstable budgeting” is seen and felt by Angelenos across the city “in crumbling infrastructure and deteriorating services.” Additionally, short-term budget balancing over the past two years resulted in unpaid furlough days for city employees and the elimination of thousands of unfilled positions. “The service impacts of those cuts are still hitting departments as they struggle to address growing needs with severely diminished capacities,” the report read.The top area of overspending continued to be liability payments. Liability claims exceeded the budget by $199 million or 228%, totaling a record of $287 million for the year. The top three areas include police at $152 million, street services at $44 million and transportation at $20 million. The top area of underspending was capital improvement projects. The city only spent $25 million of the $131 million budget. Salaries and employee benefits increased by $162.6 million compared to previous years, primarily because of cost-of-living adjustments associated with labor agreements with civilian and sworn employee unions, sworn employee hiring, increased overtime usage and higher benefit and insurance premium costs. Property taxes, which represent 40.6% of general fund revenues, increased by 4.3%. Business tax revenue increased by 8.6%, while sales tax revenues declined by 2.2% The city had to make up $160 million in revenue shortfall by tapping the reserve fund, which dropped from $648 million two fiscal years ago to $402 million for fiscal year 2024-25. The reserve fund currently sits at 5.06% of the total general fund budget, according to a December financial status report from the city administrative officer — barely above the 5% minimum set by the City Council. Four ratings agencies, including S&P, Fitch, Moody’s and Kroll, have given the city a “negative outlook” over a variety of concerns including liability payments and damages from the Palisades Fire. A negative outlook indicates a heightened risk that a city’s credit rating may be downgraded within the next 12 to 18 months. L.A. still holds an Aa2 rating from Moody’s, which is considered a high grade. The controller issued a series of recommendations, including shifting to a two-year instead of one-year budgeting process, more realistic revenue projections, and more revenue generation by growing the tax base .Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, a member of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, said in the report that the city can’t keep relying on short-term fixes, while “structural deficits,” like ongoing budget shortfalls, grow. She added that “years of draining reserves, soaring liability payouts, and underinvestment in infrastructure have left us in a perilous financial position that our communities are now forced to absorb.” “We need transparent, multi-year budgeting rooted in long-term planning and fiscal responsibility,” Hernandez said. Mejia said that although the city is halfway through its fiscal year, it continues to have general fund budget challenges. “The current fiscal year’s budget assumes moderate revenue growth, however, the long-term impact of current economic activities on revenue growth remains unknown and revenue has been stable during the first half of the year.”In addition to providing a financial picture, the report provided a demographic look at the city. L.A.’s population is 3.84 million, the average age is 37.5, the total school enrollment is 409,108 and the unemployment rate is 6%. The city employs more than 50,000 workers, the metro L.A.’s GDP is $1.3 trillion , and LAX has 75 million passengers a year.Volunteers at a Koreatown church load up produce and other groceries to be delivered to immigrant families too scared to leave their homes amid the ongoing immigration raids.With fear keeping some immigrant families inside, a program to bring groceries directly to their doors is seeking to expand.Grocery deliveries are being organized by a Koreatown church has seen a decline in attendance at its regular food distribution program in recent months. At the request of church leadership, The LA Local is not naming the church or its congregants out of privacy concerns and to avoid drawing attention to their immigrant community. It’s just one of a network of faith-based organizations responding to the need, and as raids show no signs of slowing down anytime soon, the group is seeking to expand its delivery hubs to more church sites.“There are members of our congregation that have immigration concerns that have told me they’re afraid to go out,” the pastor of the Koreatown church said. “I’ve spoken to at least four different families that are just afraid to go get groceries, are afraid to take their kids or their grandkids to school, and are worried about ICE activity in the neighborhood that’s been happening over the past seven months or so.”Mara Harris loads a box of produce into her car, along with canned food and boxed goods. It marks the second week in a row she will drive the groceries to families across Los Angeles who say immigration raids are keeping them inside their homes. “I got involved because I live in Highland Park, which is a primarily Latinx neighborhood, and I was feeling really frustrated and angry about our neighbors being unfairly treated,” Harris said. Harris is a member of Nefesh, a Jewish outreach community that has partnered with local faith leaders to deliver goods. Her role is straightforward: pick up the groceries, drive them to families who have requested help, and drop them off. “My husband is an immigrant,” she said. “I just think about the anxiety that we have going through the process, even with the resources we have access to, and I think about how impossible it is for other people to navigate that.” She added, “It’s just chance that some people were born in countries that are safe and that provide them with opportunities, and other people are not. And I think the U.S. has an obligation to extend that opportunity to those people.” The grocery deliveries are being organized by a Koreatown church that has seen a decline in attendance at its regular food distribution program in recent months. At the request of church leadership, The LA Local is not naming the church or its congregants out of privacy concerns and to avoid drawing attention to their immigrant community. It’s just one of a network of faith-based organizations responding to the need, and as raids show no signs of slowing down anytime soon, the group is seeking to expand its delivery hubs to more church sites. Before the recent enforcement activity, the Koreatown church’s regular food distribution served between 500 and 600 people, according to one church organizer. In early February, they saw around 350.Multiple families have said they’re just too afraid to go out into the neighborhood, according to church leadership. Since last summer, federal agents have carried out workplace raids, targeted day labor sites and arrested people in public spaces across the region. The Department of Homeland Security reported in December that more than 10,000 people had been detained in the LA area since June. “There are members of our congregation that have immigration concerns that have told me they’re afraid to go out,” the pastor of the Koreatown church said. “I’ve spoken to at least four different families that are just afraid to go get groceries, are afraid to take their kids or their grandkids to school, and are worried about ICE activity in the neighborhood that’s been happening over the past seven months or so.”Call Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice at 481-3740 for information about grocery delivery. In response, the church began coordinating home grocery deliveries in partnership with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE. The partnership started last summer after church staff noticed a drop in attendance at their weekly food distributions. “A lot of people were afraid to go to the food bank at , so they saw a big decline and understood that it was because people were afraid to come out, so CLUE partnered with them to do this delivery service,” said Liz Bar-El, a community liaison for CLUE. Another staff member who has worked at the Koreatown church for six years said operations have been directly affected by enforcement activity in the area. “I’ve been doing this for about six years. Last week, we had to stop at 11 a.m., and we used to close at 12, 12:30 because the ICE agents were around here,” he said. “And the number of people is decreasing because of ICE raids.” The church pastor said families do not simply call and request food; there is a screening system to ensure that the program reaches those who are most concerned about leaving their homes. CLUE has “folks that help call through the list of people that requested it to confirm for the day of their deliveries. They also have somebody that does a screening process to make sure that the people that are getting the deliveries qualify for the parameters of the program so that they’re not just getting people who are like ‘Yeah, you can deliver food to me’ but rather are really concerned about their status,” he said.“It’s likely due to fear of trusting somebody, they are hiding in their homes,” she said. “One way to reach them is through their pastors and the rapid response network that CLUE is a part of.”“This current situation with grocery delivery is mostly people who need help getting food because somebody got detained, deported and or the main breadwinner lost their job,” Bar-El said. “In one case, the husband was recently bonded out, and the wife was left home with three very small children.” For Harris, the volunteer delivering food across multiple neighborhoods, the work is personal. She often thinks about her own family’s immigration status. “My husband is British and he’s been working here off work visas for six years. He just applied for a non-conditional green card last year. So I take our anxiety and worries and extrapolate it,” she said. Organizers don’t expect the need for this service to ease anytime soon. Bar-El said they plan to expand the effort to another church in Hollywood and are seeking more volunteers. “I believe it’s my responsibility as someone who is one of the lucky ones and who does have resources and privilege to do what I can for my neighbors and for my city that I love that is so diverse and wonderful,” Harris said.If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.In a rare move, the White House recently took down a racist post from one of President Trump's social media accounts. Extremism researchers say it fits a pattern of mainstreaming extremist ideas.While the latest controversy is over a post from a Trump social media account, Eric Ward, executive vice president of Race Forward, a civil rights organization, and others say the Department of Homeland Security has been behind the most, and the most notable, examples of extremist themes in federal messaging. In its effort to recruit large numbers of new immigration enforcement agents, the federal agency has generated a body of propaganda that has raised alarm over its echoes of extremist movements.While the pattern of callbacks to extremist concepts, aesthetics and language has been clear to those tracking federal propaganda over the last year, there is less clarity around what purpose it serves. A recent social media post from an account belonging to President Donald Trump prompted enough outcry over its use of a familiar racist trope that the White House deleted it. The Truth Social post included an image of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Despite removing the post, Trump has For scholars and civil rights advocates steeped in the language and aesthetics of white nationalism, Trump's post was remarkable only because of how overtly racist the trope is. But they say that it fits into a pattern of extremist rhetoric, visual material and other media that have overtaken public messaging from federal agencies over the past year. They say that much of that messaging may not have been detectable to most Americans who are not immersed in the study of extremism. But to those who are, the dog whistles and coded words have been unmistakable. "If this were just one racist image or one bad post, it wouldn't matter much," said Eric Ward, executive vice president of Race Forward, a civil rights organization."What matters is that over the last year, the Trump administration abusing federal authority, and the federal government has increasingly learned to speak in the emotional language of white nationalism." While the latest controversy is over a post from a Trump social media account, Ward and others say the Department of Homeland Security has been behind the most, and the most notable, examples of extremist themes in federal messaging. In its effort to recruit large numbers of new immigration enforcement agents, the federal agency has generated a body of propaganda that has raised alarm over its echoes of extremist movements. "A lot of this was very much wrapped up in this kind of Norman Rockwell-style imagery of white Americana and … this idea that we need to 'defend the homeland' from migrants arriving from the Global South," said Caleb Kieffer, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center."And I think that one thing it's worth noting, and what we really were alarmed by, that we've seen this rhetoric for decades be prevalent in white nationalist circles, in anti-immigrant circles, claiming that there's this migrant invasion happening and that we need to stop it."In general, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have dismissed the links between messages they have issued and white nationalist movements. A DHS spokesperson responded to questions from NPR about this with the suggestion that NPR is"manufacturing outrage." A White House spokesperson has called journalists' questions"bizarre" and suggested that coverage of the pattern of extremist rhetoric in federal messaging is"leftwing advocacy." But Pete Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University, said this response, in itself, reflects a communication strategy that is also a mainstay of extremist movements: plausible deniability. "It is a widespread communication style, but it's certainly very prevalent in far-right extremist propaganda and broader types of communication," Simi said."And what it does is it allows you to communicate a message, but with a built-in defense that if it's interpreted the way that it might ... it allows you then to turn around and say … 'You're just … misreading it. You're misinterpreting it.'" Since Trump returned to office, Simi has tracked social media output from federal agencies that echo extremist propaganda. He said he has collected a number of examples that he considers"double speak." "It's a type of communication … where you have dual meanings, for folks that are in the know — and they will understand exactly the true intent of the meaning. But also another aspect is for outsiders," Simi said."They may not fully understand or appreciate the meaning that's meant for insiders. And that in and of itself is a way to establish plausible deniability." One of the most notable examples Simi cites of this is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ad that DHS, showing a graphic of Uncle Sam and the caption"Which way, American man?" To Simi, Kieffer and others who study white nationalism, it called back to a racist, antisemitic book titledthat is largely read within neo-Nazi circles. In a written statement, DHS did not offer comment on a question about the similarities between the post and the book title. A DHS spokesperson wrote,"By NPR's standards every American who posts patriotic imagery on the Fourth of July should be cancelled and labeled a Nazi. Not everything you dislike is 'Nazi propaganda.'" "Folks that are familiar with white supremacist propaganda would undoubtedly be familiar with that book and would see that it's referencing the book with the slight change in the one word for outsiders, probably never heard of the book," Simi said."And so that would not mean much to them." Ward said the table was set for extremism-infused public messaging before Trump began his second term. Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump and many Republican lawmakers' unsubstantiated claim that Democrats were intentionally bringing in undocumented immigrants to vote illegally echoed the NPR asked the White House for comment on similarities between claims from Trump and the administration's claims about immigrants and"replacement" theory. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded in writing, saying:"There is nothing racist about wanting to ensure only American citizens vote in American elections.""It's very much signaling to a lot of these white nationalist groups that their policy goals are being actualized and that they're seeing kind of their rhetoric now showing up in the Twitter feed of a government agency," Kieffer said.While the pattern of callbacks to extremist concepts, aesthetics and language has been clear to those tracking federal propaganda over the last year, there is less clarity around what purpose it serves. Kieffer said it is possible that DHS hopes to recruit individuals affiliated with extremist groups or movements into the ranks of immigration enforcement agents. So far, however, there has been no clear evidence that this is occurring in significant numbers. DHS did not respond to a question from NPR asking whether it is using this messaging intentionally to recruit extremists to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection. In fact, Ward said the number of Americans who fall into this category is so small that it would be a disproportionate focus for relatively small gain. Instead, he said he sees this messaging as accomplishing something with a much wider and lasting impact on the country. "Propaganda doesn't change minds. It trains reflexes," he said."Donald Trump is signaling because he wants to normalize this type of rhetoric both within MAGA, but he also wants the American public to become more accustomed . It is a way of testing normalization and tolerance in the larger American society." Simi said the propaganda is all part of an effort to create a"mood" about present-day conditions in the country. "I think it's important here to think about: What is the mood that's being conveyed by these messages?" he said."More than anything, I think they're trying to normalize different ideas associated with the messaging that immigration is an 'invasion,' that we've been overrun by these criminal immigrants, that we face an existential crisis, we are under violent attack and that requires self-defense. And in this case, because it's a violent attack that we're facing, then that legitimizes the use of violence." Ward said that as discouraging as it may be to resist radicalizing messages from the seat of power, there are still steps that everyday Americans can take. "The first is, don't circulate dehumanizing content — even to criticize it," he said. Second, Ward said, people should look critically at who is labeled as a"threat" and who is labeled as"the real people" in messages issued by federal agencies. He said people should try to understand the emotions that propaganda is trying to attach to different groups of people, such as the counterfactual effort to associate immigrants with disproportionate criminality. "And then third is: Defend democracy locally," he said."And that means standing up for your most vulnerable neighbors. ... Countries don't fall because people disagree. They fall when people are taught who no longer counts."Nathan Hall, pastor at Church of the Foothills, leads a prayer vigil outside of Santa Ana Immigration Court on Feb. 5, 2026.Since last summer, volunteer observers have been attending hearings at Santa Ana Immigration Court to keep tabs on changing policies, and to channel resources to people facing deportation.About half of the people facing deportation proceedings in California do not have a lawyer, according to data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University. Those without a lawyer are more than three times more likely to face a deportation order than those who have one, according to the data.The immigration court observer program is among dozens of grassroots efforts that have popped up around Southern California and across the country in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.The non-denominational organization known as CLUE — for Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice — is also raising money to pay bonds for non-criminal immigration detainees so that they can remain with their families while awaiting the outcome of their cases.There’s nothing grand about Santa Ana Immigration Court. Tucked in the corner of an office park between two county health agencies, you’d hardly know it was there. Which is why a group of volunteer court observers shows up on a daily basis — to keep tabs on immigration policies that seem to change by the week, and to channel resources to people facing deportation. “People feel comforted by just seeing us there, especially that we are people of faith,” said Jennifer Coria, who coordinates the immigration court observer program for the group Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or. Observers come from churches and other religious entities across Orange County and L.A. They're encouraged to wear something that signals their faith, or, if they’re clergy, to show up in religious attire. “We want the judges to know that we are coming from a faith community and they see that there's moral presence in these spaces,” Coria said.The immigration court observer program is among dozens of grassroots efforts that have popped up around Southern California and across the country in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Other groups are patrolling neighborhoods to alert residents of ICE raids, delivering food boxes to immigrant families scared to leave their homes, and posting up at Home Depots to accompany day laborers who have been a frequent target of the raids. LAist recently spent a morning inside Santa Ana Immigration Court with a group of observers to get a peek into the legal side of the federal deportation campaign. After President Donald Trump’s first full year in office, his administration continues its rapid pace of removals, in In an email to LAist, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said more than 700,000 immigrants had been arrested under Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 70% of them with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S. That statistic doesn't account for those wanted in their home countries for suspected crimes, the spokesperson added.estimates that the Trump administration deported fewer than 300,000 from the interior of the country during its first year, not counting immigrants caught or turned away at the border. The project is run largely by a group of law professors and lawyers who publish reports based on government datasets.In immigration court, the administration’s deportation campaign has meant faster proceedings, and fewer immigrants allowed to remain in the United States, according to data maintained byof new deportation cases filed in 2026 allege that the person was involved in criminal activity beyond entering the country illegally. The court observers in Santa Ana aren’t there to protest inside courtrooms or try to block deportation orders. But they say they’ll keep showing up to offer pro bono legal resources and, at the least, moral support for vulnerable members of their community. “They're my neighbors. It's like, why wouldn't I defend them?” said Diedre Gaffney, one of the court observers.For court observers, the morning starts in the lobby, scanning a wall of electronic displays with the day’s docket. They usually look for courtrooms holding what’s known as master calendar hearings — rapid-fire, preliminary hearings that can have life-changing outcomes for people fighting deportation or seeking asylum. The observers are familiar with the judges by now, and know which ones might not welcome their presence. Members of the public are generally allowed toAfter a brief discussion, the observers decided to head to Judge Wilbur Lee’s courtroom. The room is small and sparse. A flag stands in one corner. A big screen for virtual appearances takes up the other. The judge sits behind a computer monitor at the front of the room, flanked by a copy machine and a Spanish language interpreter. Lee had more than 20 cases on his docket for the morning. Some people were seeking asylum; others hoped to adjust their status, which provides a pathway to legal residency, for example, for immigrants who have married a U.S. citizen. Most of the hearings lasted only a few minutes, either postponed to another date, or scheduled for a subsequent hearing. Sometimes language, and the lack of an interpreter, delayed the hearing — there was a Nicaraguan man who spoke only Miskito, an indigenous language, and another from Kazakhstan who spoke Kazakh. Respondents — that’s the official term for people facing immigration proceedings — had traveled, or video-conferenced in, from Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Riverside, San Fernando, Eastvale and Rialto. One of the court observers spotted something new in the courtroom that day: a bright blue flyer on the desk where respondents sit to answer questions from the judge. It read, in all caps, “MESSAGE TO ILLEGAL ALIENS: A WARNING TO SELF-DEPORT.” The flyer, which was also posted in the courtroom lobby, laid out benefits and consequences of taking or not taking the government’s advice. A QR code on the flyer led to a website for the government’s self-deportation incentive program, which includes a bonus for immigrants who choose to self-deport. The amount was upped in January from $1,000 to $2,600. SomeThe fliers are the latest example of how quickly policies and procedures are changing, often without warning, adding to the dizzying nature of the proceedings. Last summer, when the Trump administration began its crackdown in earnest, ICE officers would often sit inside, or just outside courtrooms, andas soon as their case was dismissed. At the time, the court observers concentrated on getting personal information from the detainees so they could contact their families and help them locate their loved ones in ICE facilities. These days, observers say they haven’t seen ICE agents in courtrooms since the fall. So the observers’ mission has shifted to trying to get legal representation for people facing deportation proceedings without a lawyer.at Syracuse University. Without a lawyer, respondents are more than three times more likely to face a deportation order than those who have one, according to the data. By law, there is no requirement to provide legal representation.Now, when the volunteer court observers notice that a respondent is facing the judge alone, they follow them out of the courtroom and text or hand them a list of pro bono attorneys — often with an explanation aided by Google translate, or a few memorized lines in Spanish. “I tell them to call everyone on the list,” said Erin Moncure, a court observer from Lake Forest, noting that immigration lawyers are overwhelmed with the onslaught of cases over the past year. Moncure, who doesn’t speak Spanish, said she’s nevertheless talked to hundreds of strangers at immigration court to try and connect them with pro bono attorneys. Often she asks for their cell phone number so she can text them a list.The new flyer in immigration courtrooms urging people to self-deport is just one of many changes court observers have noted since they’ve been attending immigration hearings in Santa Ana over the past six months.If you don’t, you will face the consequences. This includes a fine of nearly $1,000 per day that you overstay your final deportation order.Now, rather than detaining people at courthouses, the Trump administration is focusing on other ways to speed up deportation. One of them is by increasingly sending asylum seekers already in the U.S. to third-party countries to seek asylum there instead. The first Trump administration signed deals in 2019 with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to re-route people seeking asylum in the U.S. to those countries. The Biden administration ended these agreements, and Trump reinstated them again last year. He’s also made new agreements with other countries to take asylum seekers and deportees, including with Ecuador, Paraguay, Belize and Uganda. In DHS’s statement to LAist, a spokesperson wrote that the third country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution” and “ are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.” Government attorneys and immigration judges are facing increasing pressure to use this option to cut off asylum cases early in the process, said Blaine Bookey, legal director at theat UC Law San Francisco. Many of the cases on Lee’s morning docket involved a request from the DHS lawyer to remove the person to a country other than the one they had left to come to the U.S.In one case, a woman and her teenage daughter were seeking asylum after they said their lives were threatened in Guatemala stemming from their relatives’ involvement in local politics. They hadn’t yet had a chance to plead their asylum case to remain in the U.S. when the judge began to ask them hard questions: if they feared returning to Guatemala, what about being sent instead to Honduras? The women seemed caught off guard. Ultimately, the judge determined that the two didn’t have a legally valid fear of being sent to Honduras, and ordered them deported there to seek asylum. The DHS spokesperson told LAist that ending cases before they have a hearing, called pretermission, “is nothing new or unusual” and that the mechanism prevents prolonged custody for immigrants who have been detained while they await the outcome of their legal case. "We are applying the law as written,” the spokesperson wrote. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period. All aliens in ICE custody receive due process and have any claims heard before a judge.” Outside the courtroom, the two women from Guatemala fought to contain tears as they digested the news. “What kind of life can we expect in Honduras? It’s pretty much the same as Guatemala,” the mom said in Spanish. Bookey, from the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, said the women's concern was a legitimate one, especially with regards to third-country asylum deals with Central American countries. “Given the sort of porous borders in that area … you're basically returning someone to their home country directly because their persecutor can easily track them down or find them there,” she said. Now, the only recourse for the two women from Guatemala is to appeal their case, normally a costly and lengthy process. But even that right might be curbed in the future: the Department of Justice plans to implement aIn the highly politicized climate over immigration, judges are in a tough spot. Immigration courts are under the executive, not the judicial branch of government. Immigration judges have the legal authority to make independent decisions, but some say that independence is being challenged by the current administration.The loss of judges, and the administration’s shifting priorities, has meant a constant shuffling of case dockets among remaining judges, causing delays and backlogs, and also, increasing pressure to end cases quickly, Johnson said. Currently, there are more than 3 million immigration cases pending across the country, according to TRAC, around six times more than courts were facing a decade ago. Johnson said the pressure to close cases, including by sending asylum seekers to other countries, threatens people’s right to due process. “Due process to me is a full and fair hearing,” he said. “These are life or death claims, and so you really need to make sure you get this right.”for “deportation judges,” including a signing bonus, to replace the immigration judges who were fired or resigned. Johnson called the change in job title “insulting” and a mischaracterization of the role. “It's not an enforcement position, it's to adjudicate the laws fairly,” Johnson said. “I took the job to uphold the law. That oath was very solemn to me and all the judges on that bench,” he said.Court observers have seen some positive changes at Santa Ana Immigration Court since they started observing last summer. On the day LAist visited Lee’s courtroom, many of the respondents had lawyers — a big change, observers said, from just a few months ago.for non-criminal immigration detainees, and they’ve been able to release more than a 100 people from detention while they wait for their day in court.Nate Hadinata, from Saddleback Church, sees his role as a “ministry of presence,” and not just for immigrants at risk of deportation. “ I'm actually here for everybody in the courtroom,” Hadinata said, “because I start to see that the judges are frustrated with the remote lawyers on WebEx, where the internet connection for some reason is shoddy, … the DHS attorneys, I could see they’ve got cough drops on the table, so they're working through illness,” he said. Hadinata said attending court proceedings has also allowed him to share his first-hand observations about the current immigration crackdown with his fellow parishioners. “When you think that people are criminals in here and you actually get firsthand accounts, you actually start to realize, ‘Oh, I just see families,'" he said. “And aren't we all about strong family?”Besides the court watching and the bond fund, CLUE holds a bi-weekly prayer vigil in front of Santa Ana Immigration Court. Last Thursday, Nathan Hill, pastor at Church of the Foothills in North Tustin, stood in front of the courthouse next to a sign that read, “We are people of faith praying for the disappeared.” Hill, wearing a cream-colored stole with brightly embroidered crosses, led a group of nearly 30 people in prayer and song. Some of the attendees wore pink bandanas, an homage, they said, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who demonstrated during Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War” to pressure the military dictatorship for information about their disappeared children.“ Whatever your faith community is and your journey is, just know how important it is and what a witness this is for those who are coming into the immigration courts even right now to see us standing here in solidarity with them, with love for them, with the demanding that they be treated with respect and with dignity to get a fair shake in this process to call this amazing country home.” María Elena Perales, with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, said she helped start the prayer vigils in June as a way to show public support for local families targeted in the immigration raids. “Many of them do not go grocery shopping, many of them do not send their kids to school. Kids are being traumatized as we speak,” she said of the raids’ effect on immigrant families. “A lot of people do not understand, maybe, what our families are suffering. This is an opportunity to engage people and say, ‘come and join us in prayer, and hear about the stories.’” As the prayer vigil wound down, people began to trickle through the doors of immigration court. The afternoon session would soon begin, and with it, dozens more lives in the balance.
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